Déchiqueteuse (Paper-Shredder)

This chapter discusses la déchiqueteuse (the paper-shredder) as an emblematic object of the epistemic hygiene of international law and as a symbol of the politics of mastering law’s past. Of what is at first sight just an everyday technological object of bureaucracy, the chapter tells an exciting story of the international legislative moments, following the traces of the files of international law up to where they end up being recycled. An agreement, a map, a report are all both sheets of paper and relics of power, telling about the rendering of order, the structuring and clarifying of space, the granting and codifying of rights, and the marking of territories. The chapter hints at how in the broadest metaphoric sense la déchiqueteuse is part of the story of international law as ideas that turn into text and images with authority, and then enter the world, before exiting it in tiny shreds.