Moving through international courthouses: on design, emotion, and a sense of belonging

This presentation will introduce a new research project on the nexus between courthouse design and the perception of international justice. In the project, Sofia explores how the bodily experience of entering a physical space of international law, for example the premises of the International Criminal Court, affects our understanding and appreciation of the justice done by these institutions. The project brings together insights from the cognitive sciences, critical legal studies, visual studies, legal design, architecture and feminist courtroom geography. The starting point of the research is the intimate relationship between architecture, spatial cognition and spatial emotion observed in cognitive studies. The main question Sofia wants to tease out is how physical structures of in- and exclusion in the design shapes experiences of mental boundaries and belonging—and vice versa—in the context of international (criminal law). This question is informed by critical studies into the exclusionary practices of ICL, socio-legal studies of democratic architecture, and research in the area of legal design and human dignity in courthouses. In researching courthouse design, Sofia specifically focus on structures of access and restriction, assuming that the possibility or containment of movement affects how we perceive the accessibility of a space, which in turn affects our behaviour as well as our emotional connection to the space. The project aims to map out the points of access and restriction and spatial/visual clues that frame the perception of in/exclusion in international courthouses. This presentation sets out the theoretical and empirical starting points of the project and contemplates on the possibility of translating the research question into an experimental research design focused on het behaviour of courtroom visitors.