Johns: Shadowboxing: The Data Shadows of Cold War International Law

Fleur E. Johns (Univ. of New South Wales - Law) has posted Shadowboxing: The Data Shadows of Cold War International Law (in Cold War International Law, Matthew Craven, Sundhya Pahuja, Gerry Simpson & Anna Saunders eds., forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

That states have come to be represented in “data shadows” for international legal purposes – that is, that state populations’ condition may be gleaned from remotely sensed data to overcome deficiencies in official government statistics – is today identified with digital innovation. “Data shadows” were, however, crucial features of Cold War international law. Cold War decision-makers were captivated by the prognostications and intimations of “sigint” (signals intelligence). International legal order came to be marked, during the Cold War, by the latent or virtual agency of states’ sigint data shadows in ways that leave an enduring legacy today.