THE EXHIBITION OF PORTRAITS: NEW NAMES AND FORGOTTEN FACES?
The exhibition consists of forty-two portraits of ‘women in international law’ in ten rooms. The re- curation opened up the mythological pair of words, ‘international lawyers’.It here includes individuals or groups who imagined, developed, or contested international law; who gained their lives in and by it and its institutions; or who, even if active in other endeavours, changed its course in their particular manner either contemporaneously or later. International ‘law’ encompasses here also ideas, causes, norms, and social practices before they had legal relevance in a positivist sense in the temporal contexts in question, such as agendas and arguments concerning morals, social justice, or equity before the international legal discourse emerged. Little attention is paid to formal education or professional titles as ‘lawyers’ as women were not, until the last century, allowed to get educated, adhere to a profession, or exercise salaried activities outside the household. For similar structural reasons, the understanding of ‘authorship’ with a potential of relevance for international law is widened, comprising, for example, journalists, artists, legal librarians, civil society activists, and various assistants.142
Explore the Halls of the Exhibition