4 - ‘A Picture Worth More Than a Thousand Words’

Summary

‘What is the value of global justice?’ is the question that leads the enquiry in this chapter. By tracking the circulation of a photograph of a defendant before the International Criminal Court, this chapter seeks to demonstrate the primacy of market value in the dominant understanding of global justice. As the photograph is circulated through news media, non-governmental organisations, to an artist’s studio, and to an exhibition, the value of the photograph crystallises as congealing the message, and legitimacy, of global justice as concerning the fight against impunity. From a theoretical perspective, this is explained through an emphasis on the photograph’s ‘exchange value’ over its ‘use value’. The chapter closes with a stock-taking, highlighting the narrowing of what is seen as global justice when it is marketised: (a) the narrowing of visibility impacts on the multiplicity of global justice visions, and (b) the narrowing of visibility renders structural violence invisible.