Lawfare: genesis and an announced in dispute

Abstract

The relationship between law and politics, which has always been constructed through strong connections, recently emerged within the field of law with a juxtaposition from English created to denominate the term Lawfare. This combination of the words "law" and "warfare" has brought to jurists from different countries, including Brazil, a debate about a supposedly new phenomenon and its implications. Lawfare arises as the use of the law for political purposes in a denunciatory tone, something to be combated for the supposed preservation of the rule of law and its guarantees. However, since its inception, there has not been, by the intellectuals who have sought to conceptualize or use this concept, an effort to conduct an in-depth study of its true meaning, making this term an empty signifier that sometimes fits into contradictory situations, being able to be appropriated by the most different traditions and ideologies, yet distant from the frameworks structured by critical legal theories. The present study starts from this discursive inconsistency about this object to investigate its genesis in order to trace its itinerary in different geopolitical contexts where Lawfare appeared. And with this, we seek to highlight the linguistic and legal disputes that this statement assumes and the ideological reasons that underpin its use. The importance of demonstrating the imprecision of the term helps to reveal its true purpose and prevents us from adhering to a fluctuation that falls into rhetoric alien to the tradition of Latin American legal criticism.