Symposium on Art, Aesthetics and International Justice: Primed for Unity and Complexity – International Justice Through Aesthetic Lens

[SONG Tianying is a Research Fellow at the Centre for International Law Research and Policy]

Confucius said: “One establishes oneself through rites and perfects oneself through music.” (The Analects · Book VIII: Tai Bo) International justice is established in terms of rites; Marina Aksenova’s Art, Aesthetics and International Justice seeks to improve it with aesthetic insights. It is a highly innovative approach which coincides with ancient Chinese wisdom. While the book discusses a wide range of international justice issues, this post focuses on its premium example: international criminal justice. 

I started reading the book with immense curiosity: what does art have to do with international criminal justice – a project that seeks to apply legal rationality to the most irrational forms of human violence? This book makes a seemingly counterintuitive argument: we need more than rationality in the fateful struggle against extreme irrationality. 

On the other hand, violence and moral struggle have always fascinated artists. They feature some of the most well-known theatre plays, poems, paintings and sculptures throughout history. King Herod’s massacre of innocent babies, for example, have been depicted in many paintings by different artists of different times. In Florence, where I’m currently based, tourists walking through the main square (Piazza Signoria) will not miss a dramatic sculpture called “The Rape of the Sabine”. This 16^th century masterpiece by Giambologna was based on the mythological account of Rome’s founding era, when the scarcity of women led Roman men to conduct a raptio (a large-scale abduction) of young women from nearby Sabina. The body language, the facial expressions, the spiral composition of the sculpture vividly communicate the intensity of violence, suffering and trauma from more than 2000 years ago. Moral struggles gain enduring historical significance partly through artistic publicity.  

Aksenova’s Art, Aesthetics and International Justice reveals that art communicates differently than law and the two can forge a constructive relationship in the pursuit of international justice. I would like to engage two themes in the book: one is about how art can affect human instinct to co-operate or fight; the other is how art can communicate with grassroot audience in matters of justice.  

Cultivating Instinct for Unity 

International criminal justice as a moral/political movement has waxed and waned in mobilizing consensus and actions. Milestones such as treaties and institutions, signify unity and aspiration there and then. Such unity should not be taken for granted elsewhere and later. It has to navigate through competing priorities, hostile political environment and paralyzing bureaucratic procedures. This fragile fruit needs constant maintenance and reinvention to survive. Becoming established has its own problems. Aksenova makes the incisive diagnosis that there is “a deeper lack of common direction” (p. 158) and a “complete loss of any common narrative” in international justice (p. 169). 

The instinct to find common ground and co-operate is essential to international justice as a cosmopolitan project. (Philosophical Foundations of International Criminal Law: Legally-Protected Interests, TOAEP, 2022) In order to have unity drive international justice, we need to strive for such unity in the first place. Unity is not an uncaused cause; its mystical existence requires alignment of all stars. A major merit of Art, Aesthetics and International Justice, as I see it, is that it suggests a creative way to promote co-operative instinct. 

Art is spark. It reminds people at experiential, not intellectual level, of original aspirations of international justice. German philosopher Friedrich Schiller emphasizes the importance of aesthetic education to moral development, in the sense that without the former, moral education becomes coercive indoctrination. (On the Aesthetic Education of Man, 1794) Recent psychological studies show that moral reasoning mainly functions to justify pre-existing instinct (The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion, 2013). Art has the potential to shape one’s instinct before it emerges to the conscious level. Aksenova defines the aesthetic lens as “process-orientated” and contemplative. (p. 60) “Aesthetic experience”, Aksenova argues, “frees individuals from personal investment and allows for the universality of perception.” (p. 16) It enables “emotional and intellectual clarity” through unreserved immersion. (p. 162) In other words, the observing agent achieves universality of perception by losing “self-preference”. This can in turn help transcend pre-existing “cognitive categories”. Our common “ability to perceive beauty” therefore can instil new life into the aspirations of unity and collective action. (p. 60) Aksenova develops the aesthetic lens in connection with natural law theory and ancient Indian philosophy. (Chapters 2 and 3) 

In sum, temporary retreat from cyclical legal argumentation and concentrating on direct experiences can increase mental flexibility. (p. 160) Art helps open up entrenched psychological barriers and reduce polarization. In this way, the aesthetic experience primes us towards unity, even under difficult circumstances. By emphasizing “perception”, Aksenova focuses on the visual faculty. More research can be done about how non-visual art forms such as music can engage senses and sensibilities.

Embracing Complexity of Truth

Isn’t art a luxury for typical victims of international crimes? We are talking about people who have been through major social upheavals and may be in desperate need for basic security and material supplies.

If the book stopped short at incorporating philosophical and aesthetic theories into international justice, it would risk only speaking to a small group of elite cosmopolitan actors. Chapter 5 explicitly addresses the primary audience of international justice: victims, perpetrators, and affected communities. What can art mean to them? Aksenova takes stock of symbolic reparation measures before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the International Criminal Court and their local reception. She illustrates how art can be integrated into practical facilities such as community or educational centres, thus addressing the needs to survive, to develop and to heal. (pp. 127-131) 

Aksenova argues that “words often fail to provide an accurate label to the dynamic nature of reality”. International criminal law in particular speaks “in binary language”: guilty/innocent; perpetrator/victim, etc. (p. 83) Art has a role in “communicating complex truth(s)”. (p. 21) She explains how symbolic measures such as installation of a plague, construction of a memorial space, restoration of a chapel can add nuances to the reductionist legal narrative. Aksenova highlights that such judicial reparations can “embrace multiple narratives and reflect the complexity of the social conflict”. (p. 133.) By providing an “experiential dimension”, art works may be better at overcoming cognitive biases than a legal judgment. (p. 136) In addition, as international criminal law cannot punish every perpetrator, symbolic reparations through artistic expression can have a wider reach in terms of time and space. (p. 138) 

In response to the “luxury question”, my read of the book suggests that art works can be rooted and cost-effective. An international legal judgment may require a colossal budget, lengthy proceedings and come from an alien place. In contrast, art works may not cost much; they can be designed and constructed by locals, blend into everyday life and have a lasting presence in the community. They do not replace, but amplify courtroom justice.

Conclusion

It is often assumed that law is objective and art is (highly) subjective. Marina Aksenova’s Art, Aesthetics and International Justice tells us it can be the other way around. While art does not necessarily have a superior access to truth, it does provide an alternative lens to look at matters falling into the realm of international justice. And it is an alternative that activates different mental faculties than legal thinking. This opens up imagination and revitalizes the increasingly institutionalized international justice.