Totalitarianism rejects the very consensus iuris that defines any people or legal order.

Evidence

At this point the fundamental difference between the totalitarian and all other concepts of law comes to light. Totalitarian policy does not replace one set of laws with another, does not establish its own consensus iuris, does not create, by one revolution, a new form of legality. Its defiance of all, even its own positive laws implies that it believes it can do without any consensus iuris whatever, and still not resign itself to the tyrannical state of lawlessness, arbitrariness and fear. It can do without the consensus iuris because it promises to release the fulfillment of law from all action and will of man; and it promises justice on earth because it claims to make mankind itself the embodiment of the law. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1042

Categorization

• DEFINE: Distinguishes totalitarian ‘law’ from both positive legality and tyranny: it needs no consensus because the law is deferred to History or Nature, not to human agreement.
• XREF: This maps onto the module’s concern with how modern bureaucratic rationality enables mass exclusion — a regime that claims to need no consensus can dispense with the moral standing of its subjects entirely.