International Legal Sightseeing as a Phenomenon and a Methodology

Legal sightseeing de- notes the ‘eventisation’ of inter- national law: international court- houses stage public photo exhibitions and offer audio tours, inter- national lawyers partake in film festivals, and the buildings of international organisations have become top tourist destinations. We zoom-in on these encounters and ask how international law is presented to ‘the public’ and in turn what that public shows up for. We argue that as phenomenon, legal sightseeing is vital to our understanding of the contemporary practice of international law and to questions of who gets to partake in it. Moreover, as experimental methodological intervention, legal sightseeing is not only an argument about what to look at and for, but also about how to look and see.