Subjecthood in Cyberspace and the Uncanny Valley of International Law

Abstract

In this article the authors build on Masahiro Mori’s 1970s essay “The Uncanny Valley”, psychoanalysis and critical legal pluralism, to analyse how the uncanny in international law is exposed through law’s encounter with the a-human, non-human and more-than-human phenomena challenging legal subjecthood in cyberspace. Discussing autonomous decision-making, dwellers and encounters in international law’s uncanny valley the article proposes that international law needs to cater to a spectrum of non-human subjectivities, entities, laws and normativities. In short, international law needs to ‘get over itself’ and its constant anxiety in the face of the plurality of laws and Others.