Painting international law as universal: imperialism and the co-opting of image and art

Visual international law tells stories. Image and art supporting imperialism in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries also projected the authority and universalism of international law. This article argues that depictions of treaty-making, of international legal theorists, and of conferences were about painting European international law as ‘successful’—telling stories of an authoritative, universal, and virtue-laden mode of international regulation.