Autour du "crime des crimes": au-dela des affaires humaines?
In: Raisons politiques: études de pensée politique, Heft 17, S. 9-30
ISSN: 1291-1941
Focusing on genocide & how it is handled in international law, this article explores the different implications of the idea Hannah Arendt put forward in The Human Condition (1958): that there are certain crimes that can be neither punished nor forgiven. The article points up ambiguities inherent in Arendt's thought & in the very question of genocide, particularly the need for a humane answer to an evil that may be as inhumane as it is banal. It finds that any attempt to mete out justice in the face of a crime like genocide must establish, even artificially build, a link between the act & its legal consequences. Adapted from the source document.