ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a detailed unpacking of what this book calls the knowledge–vision composite as both the mechanism of production of the lawful target as well as the operational logic of the act of discriminate targeting. In doing so, this chapter examines relevant legislations, commentaries, and case laws only to reconfigure the legal notion of target at the intersection of adversarial political willpower and the technological modes of visualisation. This unpacking of knowledge–vision composite explains the legitimised use of violence beyond the legal divide of international and non-international armed conflicts. Knowledge–vision composite, as an analytical tool, would further be important for understanding the contemporary use of advanced digital technologies of surveillance and visualisation as part of the historical trajectory of laws' effort to mobilise violence through various configurations of lethal violence with visual signifiers.
