Subjecthood in Cyberspace and the Uncanny Valley of International Law




Korhonen Outi, Bruncevic Merima, Arvidsson Matilda

PublisherBrill Nijhoff

2023

Nordic Journal of International Law

NJIL

92

1

138

169

1571-8107

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1163/15718107-bja10058

https://brill.com/view/journals/nord/92/1/article-p138_007.xml

https://research.utu.fi/converis/portal/detail/Publication/179337314



In this article the authors build on Masahiro Mori’s 1970s essay “The Uncanny Valley”, psychoanalysis and critical legal pluralism, to analyse how the uncanny in international law is exposed through law’s encounter with the a-human, non-human and morethan-human phenomena challenging legal subjecthood in cyberspace. Discussing autonomous decision-making, dwellers and encounters in international law’s uncanny valley the article proposes that international law needs to cater to a spectrum of nonhuman subjectivities, entities, laws and normativities. In short, international law needs to ‘get over itself’ and its constant anxiety in the face of the plurality of laws and Others.


Last updated on 2024-26-11 at 23:22