"A Jurisprudence of Images: Law, Legitimacy, and the Visual in a Post-9/11 World"

with Dr. Jothie Rajah

In a post-9/11 world, principles and practices that used to mark law, such as civil and human rights, and judicial proceedings in the public domain, have been subordinated to ‘national security’ and the sense of ‘perpetual war’. What does this rescripting mean for law and justice in our time, and what is the role of the visual in this shattering and re-making of law? In an exploration of these questions, this paper focuses on images relating to the killing and burial of Osama bin Laden, attending to what has officially been made visible, and the manner in which popular culture has rendered visible what official images have left invisible. The paper theorises the nexus of images, law, legitimacy, and performativity, drawing on critical theory relating to law, semiotics, and affect.

Dr. Jothie Rajah is Research Professor at the American Bar Foundation, Chicago. Her publications include Authoritarian Rule of Law (Cambridge University Press, 2012) and “Sinister Translations: Law’s Authority in a Post-9/11 World” 2014 Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies. Her current project studies post-9/11 rule of law discourses.