The Eichmann Trial and the Legacy of Jurisdiction (original) (raw)

Although the phenomenon of political trials has a long history that goes back to the beginning of Western civilization, it has gained renewed interest of late. This interest was triggered by the possibility of bringing heads of state to trial for crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes by national courts exercising universal jurisdiction. Although the legal cases vary, defendants such as Slobodan Milosevic, Augosto Pinochet and Ariel Sharon all raised one common defense: they claimed that the proceedings against them amounted to a political trial. In this essay I would like to tackle the dilemma of the political trial with the help of political theory developed by Otto Kirschheimer, Judith Shklar, and Hannah Arendt. I offer a reading of the Eichmann trial as occupying the intersection between national political trial, and international political trial. I focus on one aspect of the trial – the legacy of jurisdiction, and on a neglected aspect of Hannah Arendt's writing on the trial. I argue that it is within this seemingly legalistic aspect of the trial that we can identify the roots of a crisis for modern criminal law in the wake of World War II. It reveals the deep sense in which an important source of legitimacy for criminal law - its connection to a single and coherent political community - has been undermined and is in need of a new articulation.