4 - Images and Aesthetics for International Environmental Law

Summary

The treaty processes examined so far are replete with nature photographs. To consider the significance of such images, Chapter 4 starts by explaining aesthetic theorisations of nature in visual art. Over philosophical objections, it maintains that artistic depictions of the environment can be understood both critically, for example with insights from eco-criticism, and in terms of the multi-sensory experiences contemplated by philosophers of environmental aesthetics. The chapter then describes conceptions of ‘image’ in aesthetic theory for the arts, and in the field of law and aesthetics or, more particularly, visual jurisprudence. Despite a privileging of worded text, law’s visual manifestations have been identified by jurisprudents of common and civil law. The aesthetic analysis of visual art for law by scholars such as Desmond Manderson is found in studies of art for international law, and for environmental law. This chapter argues that understandings of image in scholarship for the arts can be combined with the distinct characterisations of the environment by philosophers of environmental aesthetics, to analyse the concept of aesthetic value for international environmental law.