Lawfare
| Lawfare link | |
|---|---|
| File:Brooke Goldstein.jpg Lawfare Project Executive Director Brooke Goldstein |
Lawfare, a portmanteau of the words law and warfare, describes the use of legal systems and institutions to politically persecute opponents.
Apart from imprisonment, the goal can be to delegitimise them or win a public relations victory, bar them from elections, waste their time and money, scare or warn them, or psychologically discourage them.[1][2]
Examples in the UK
Lawfare has been waged in the UK against many individuals, notably Julian Assange, Craig Murray and Jeremy Corbyn.
Jeremy Corbyn was sued for defamation by the UKLFI's Richard Millett arising out of statement made by Mr Corbyn during an interview on "The Andrew Marr Show" on 23 Sept 2018.[3]
In 2022, just three weeks before the trial, the case was dropped vindicating Jeremy fully. Still, that left him with his lawyer Martin Howe's legal bill of £1,477,000. Many small donations to JBC Defence Ltd and subsequent negotiations helped pay a large part of this but, today, Corbyn is left with an outstanding bill of £400,000.
On the "Not the Andrew Marr Show" of 25 May 2023, Crispin Flintoff discussed Jeremy Corbyn's case with Yanis Varoufakis, legal adviser and former parliamentary candidate Pamela Fitzpatrick and human rights specialist Sir Geoffrey Bindman KC. The discussion revealed how lawfare continues to be used to silence radical voices.[4]
US perspective
Lawfare Project
The Lawfare Project defines lawfare as "the abuse of Western laws and judicial systems to achieve strategic military or political ends".[5] From this perspective, lawfare consists of "the negative manipulation of international and national human rights laws to accomplish purposes other than, or contrary to, those for which they were originally enacted".
In a 2010 speech on the topic, Lawfare Project Director Brooke Goldstein elaborated:
- "Lawfare is about more than just delegitimising a state's right to defend itself; it is about the abuse of the law and our judicial systems to undermine the very principles they stands for: the rule of law, the sanctity of innocent human life, and the right to free speech. Lawfare is not something in which persons engage in the pursuit of justice; it is a negative undertaking and must be defined as such to have any real meaning.
- "Otherwise, we risk diluting the phenomenon and feeding the inability to distinguish between what is the correct application of the law, on the one hand, and what is lawfare, on the other. Because that is the essence of the issue here, how do we distinguish between that which constitutes a constructive, legitimate legal battle (even if the legal battle is against us and inconvenient) from that which is a counterproductive perversion of the law, which should be allocated no precedent?
- "The delineation is not as simple as some may like to make it; that is, that lawsuits against terrorists are good, and legal actions against the US and Israel are bad. Now, the question is not 'who is the target', but 'what is the intention' behind the legal action: is it to pursue justice, to apply the law in the interests of freedom and democracy, or is the intent to undermine the system of laws being manipulated?"[6]
Lawfare blog
Lawfare is an American blog dedicated to national security issues, published by the Lawfare Institute in cooperation with the Brookings Institution.
The Lawfare blog was started in September 2010 by Benjamin Wittes (a former editorial writer for The Washington Post), Harvard Law School professor Jack Goldsmith, and University of Texas at Austin law professor Robert Chesney. Goldsmith was the head of the Office of Legal Counsel in the George W. Bush administration's Justice Department, and Chesney served on a detention-policy task force in the Obama administration. Its writers include law professors, law students, and former George W. Bush and Barack Obama administration officials.[7]
The Lawfare blog's coverage of intelligence and legal matters related to the Trump administration has brought the blog significant increases in readership and national attention.[8]
References
- ↑ "Is Lawfare Worth Defining?"
- ↑ "Unrestricted Warfare p. 55"
- ↑ "Transcript of The Andrew Marr Show, 23 September 2018, Jeremy Corbyn MP"
- ↑ "Lawfare and Corbyn's massive legal bill"
- ↑ "Lawfare: The Use of the Law as a Weapon of War"
- ↑ "Lawfare: Real Threat or Illusion?"
- ↑ "Lawfare blog"
- ↑ "Chesney’s Lawfare Blog Makes Headlines, Reaches 10 Million People a Year"
Wikipedia is not affiliated with Wikispooks. Original page source here