Visual Evidence and the Gaza Flotilla Raid

This book engages with pivotal examples of extraterritorialityfrom Antiquity and into the twenty first centuryin order to broaden the original judicial and geographical definition and thereby include physical and digitized information, and visual data in particular. By focusing on a critical incident of recent Middle Eastern historynamely,the Gaza Freedom Flotilla of 2010 which sailed against Israel's enduring blockadeit shows how the device of extraterritoriality shapes not only the political situation in Gaza, the legal status of the maritime environment in which the flotilla incident took place, and the judicial actions taken in response but also reveals how the concept of extraterritoriality is key to explaining the States subsequent efforts to confiscate and monopolize all visual evidence of its alleged violations of international statutes. Through the lens of the missing visual evidence characterizing the Mavi Marmara incident after-effects, it explores how the legal systems ability to evade transparency seems to be a built-in condition for eluding criminal accountability at the international level, with the emphasis on extraterritorialitys fundamental role in fashioning our current legal and political orders.