Non-binding

A collective performance on the non-compelling force of international law in the face of genocide.

Part of: In the Middle of Parallel Universes - Presented at Småland Triennale

In parallel worlds, two stacks of paper tell different stories. Since October 2023, the world has witnessed the Israeli genocide in Gaza and ecocide in Lebanon.

The myth of international law is that it defines what cannot be done. But reality produces different documents: hospital strike counts, names of children, press releases from UN agencies whose own staff are being killed, attacks and murders of journalists, the arithmetic of starvation.

“Non‑binding” is the legal term for resolutions that do not compel. Gaza and Lebanon have demonstrated that almost the entire architecture of international humanitarian law is non‑binding in practice.

We read because we have words and no court. We read in parallel because the parallel is the indictment: between what is written and what is permitted, between what is documented and what is done.