For some time, the term “lawfare” has spread throughout the domestic political-legal discourse, jurisprudence, and scholarship of countries and political systems in Latin America, notably–but by no means exclusively–Brazil and Argentina. It has been invoked, in various senses and for various purposes, elsewhere around the world, including recently in connection with the criminal investigations and prosecutions involving Donald Trump and his associates.
This MCLR+ Forum brings together an international and interdisciplinary panel of commentators to investigate domestic lawfare and its rhetoric from a wide range of perspectives across a number of national, regional, and systemic contexts. Is there such a thing (or things) as Lawfare? If not, is there at least a common core shared by a number of disparate concepts, phenomena, and political or rhetorical tools? Where does lawfare come from? Is it a new phenomenon or as old as law (and war) itself? What has it been used for, and by whom, and how? How does “lawfare” relate to other, possibly related or adjacent, concepts or labels, such as “rule of law,” “fake news,” “enemy criminal law,” “war on crime,” “war on terror,” “police state,” “wehrhafte Demokratie,” or–more prosaically–“cause lawyering”? In the end, is lawfare a fruitful topic of thought and study, and international and interdisciplinary reflection in particular? Does it have normative bite? Analytical power? Can it shed more light than heat?
For supplementary materials, please consult MCLR+ Resources (“Lawfare”).
In preparation for this Forum, MCLR+ hosted a book panel, live streamed on YouTube, on June 13, 2024. The video of that event is available here; the audio is accessible here, or on any of the usual podcast outlets (Spotify, Apple, etc.).
Lawfare and the Indian Legal System
Gautam Bhatia
Lawfare or the Politicization of the Criminal Justice System: The Case of Spain
Manuel Cancio Meliá
Lawfare as a Bridge Between Socio-Legal Theory and Practice
Mark Friis Hau
In Defense of Lawfare
Rocío Lorca
Indicators of Lawfare: Assessing the Criminalization of Progressive Politics in Latin America
Valeria Vegh Weis
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