Screen

This chapter considers the screen as an object of international law. Screens fulfil two dual and paradoxical functions: They simultaneously disclose and conceal information; they create both co-presence and distance. The revealing screen conceals the selective process of exclusion, editing, assemblage, and adaptation, and the concealing screen silences dissent. A discussion of the dual function of screens in international law foregrounds the political implications, which are hidden when screens are presented as (merely) neutral media. The dual functions of screens and its political significance are demonstrated through two examples from international criminal law: The screening of the Kony 2012 advocacy film in Northern Uganda and the screening of Judge Sow’s ‘dissent’ at the Charles Taylor trial.