“LAWFARE” AND THE USE OF LAW AS AN INSTRUMENT OF WAR

Abstract

The United Kingdom convinced an insurance company to withdraw the insurance of a russian ship
that was carrying helicopter gunships bound to Assad’s regime, forcing it to return to its origin, to don’t
have to intercept it by force and make a war declaration. Taliban made NATO reduce its effectiveness
in combat by positioning their facilities next to hospitals and schools, disseminating a mediatic
campaign against allied bombings. To designate those behaviors, the term “lawfare” means the use
of Law as an instrument to obtain a military advantage. However, the incipient literature about the
issue and the absence of methods and criteria to systematize such use of legal mechanisms, allows
“lawfare” to be carried out in a way proposedly vague and flexible, in order to make easier the
legitimation of hostilities before national and international institutions as well as the public opinion.
The objective of this essay is to provide some theoretical base to an introductory study of “lawfare”
by research in concerning literature. As a result, the practice of “lawfare” is strategic phenomena that
is growing in relevance in a globalized and unstable world as it is important to decrease the political
and material costs of war and legitimate contemporary warfare.