Sunday, April 16, 2017

Trachtman: Integrating Lawfare and Warfare

Joel P. Trachtman (Tufts Univ. - Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy) has posted Integrating Lawfare and Warfare (Boston College International and Comparative Law Review, Vol. 39, no. 2, 2016). Here's the abstract:
Current military campaigns are not waged solely on the physical battlefield, but in multiple other arenas. One such arena is lawfare: legal activity that supports, undermines, or substitutes for other types of warfare. In today’s law-rich environment, with an abundance of legal rules and legal fora, strategists must evaluate the full scope of possible legal argumentation. Lawfare can substitute for warfare where it provides a means to compel specified behavior with fewer costs than kinetic warfare, or even in cases where kinetic warfare would be ineffective. As a result, lawfare can be strategically integrated into military command structures to bring about desired outcomes.