Abstract What are the criteria for assessing the inhumane character of acts committed by governments against the civilian population during a pandemic? To answer this question, this essay, situated at the interface between international criminal law and global health, recalls a past of criminal practices in the health field to point out, in the present, the political and ideological determinants of national responses to Covid-19. Next, it draws on the thought of Hannah Arendt and Mireille Delmas-Marty to address the evolving nature of crimes against humanity, as a basis for the analysis of a paradigmatic case: the Brazilian response to the Covid-19 pandemic, whose governmental conducts are presented in the light of elements such as context, actus reus and mens rea.