On the Alleged Conflict Between Democracy and International Law‪.‬

It is December 12, 1960. Israeli secret agents have captured Adolf Eichmann, and the Israeli government has declared its intention to put Eichmann on trial. Karl Jaspers writes to Hannah Arendt: "The Eichmann trial is unsettling ... because I am afraid Israel may come away from it looking bad no matter how objective the conduct of the trial.... Its significance is not in its being a legal trial but in its establishing of historical facts and serving as a reminder of those facts for humanity." (1) For the next several months and eventually years an exchange ensues between Hannah Arendt and her teacher and mentor, Karl Jaspers, about the legality or illegality of the Eichmann trial, about institutional jurisdiction, and about the philosophical foundations of international law and in particular of "crimes against humanity." Arendt replies that she is not as pessimistic as Jaspers is about "the legal basis of the trial." (2) Israel can argue that Eichmann had been indicted in the first trial in Nuremberg and escaped arrest. In capturing Eichmann, Israel was capturing an outlaw--a hostis humani generis (an enemy of the human race)--who had been condemned of "crimes against humanity." He should have appeared before the Nuremberg court, but since there was no successor court to carry out its mission, Arendt thinks that Israeli courts have a plausible basis for assuming jurisdiction.