The philosopher and cultural critic Walter Benjamin owned a print, Angelus novus, by Paul Klee. In his essay, Theses on the philosophy of history, Benjamin’s Ninth Thesis recalled that it depicted: An angel…who looks as though he were about to distance himself from something which he is staring at. His eyes are opened wide, his mouth stands open and his wings are outstretched. The Angel of History must look just so. His face is turned towards the past. Where we see the appearance of a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe, which unceasingly piles rubble on top of rubble and hurls it before his feet. He would like to pause for a moment…to awaken the dead and to piece together what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise, it has caught itself up in his wings and is so strong that the Angel can no longer close them. The storm drives him irresistibly into the future, to which his back is turned, while the…
International Law in Art, Literature, Thought
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Tennyson’s “Locksley Hall”: A Disappointed Dream of Peace Through Law
In “Locksley Hall”–a lesser known masterpiece of Alfred, Lord Tennyson (pictured left)–a soldier ruminates on the disappointments of his youthful passion and idealism. Below is an excerpt in which the narrator reflects on his earlier vision of a future of peace through international law and commerce and his later disillusionment with that dream. The poem is remarkably post-modern given that it was first published…
The Peace of Utrecht in 1713, a Painting by Semiramis Öner Mühüdaroğlu
The Treaty of Utrecht was until recently one of the few major peace treaties that had not been commemorated in a painting or photograph. The treaty was finally memorialized on the occasion of its 300-year anniversary last year in a painting (pictured left, click to enlarge) by Turkish artist Semiramis Öner Mühüdaroğlu. The Treaty of…
“The City and the City” and Public International Law
The City and the City. It is, at its core, a novel about jurisdiction, and its setting is one of Miéville’s most fascinating creations. Miéville himself is no stranger to international law, being the author of Between Equal Rights: A Marxist Theory of International Law (2005). His novel demonstrates an unsurprising interest with the possibilities of law…
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