Meaning of lawfare | Babel Free

Definitions

The bringing of legal proceedings against an opponent, often only to attack, harass, or intimidate.

informal, uncountable

Equivalents

Examples

“[…] Watch […] proceeded to the door, which he tried, and there discovered that that official had not only taken his parole d'honneur [word of honour; promise], but had adopted the additional security of turning the key; and knowing that circumstance had vacated the pre-existent treaty between them, by all the rules of civilised nations, whether in lawfare or warfare, he proceeded at once to the window; whereform, the ostler having brought him, by pre-arrangement, a ladder, he descended in safety to the yard; […]”

“The canton is clearly reduced, but not to the status of a mere private corporation. It stil is a state with standing in cort to wage some lawfare for itself and for its folk.”

“And we hear that the construction unions now are bitter over the environmentalists' dragging construction projects into the courts, delaying them for years. "Lawfare" the hard hats call this.”

“Lawfare, as defined by [George Walker] Bush Administration officials, is a terrorist tactic. Yet to anyone trained in English and American jurisprudence, not to mention the thinking that has dominated the Anglo-Saxon legal world at least since 1688, those who are accused of engaging in lawfare are simply exercising well-established legal rights and liberties. Indeed, the lawfare doctrine is the conceptual framework that best reveals the degree to which the Bush Administration has effectively declared war on the rule of law itself.”

“[T]he data suggest that the one area of competition where China does not enjoy an advantage is in the legal sphere. This is surprising given the Chinese emphasis on lawfare and the "Three Warfares" in its strategic literature. The Philippines has been more active in using legal tactics, and China has been in a reactive mode.”

“The PRC [People's Republic of China]'s version of PW [Political Warfare] is all encompassing. It is Total War that goes beyond traditional Liaison Work (building coalitions in a "United Front" to support the PRC and to "disintegrate" enemies) and the "Three Warfares" (strategic psychological warfare, overt and covert media manipulation, and the use of "Lawfare") to include use of violence and other forms of destructive attacks.”

“Earlier this year the [Australian] environment minister, Sussan Ley, said the "lawfare that is such a part of today's environmental landscape can be crippling to ­business as well as to environmental organisations". […] GreenLaw found […] strong evidence that public interest litigants are not abusing court processes to disrupt and delay proponents.”

“International scrutiny had driven Chinese authorities away from extrajudicial detention towards forms of "lawfare" and weaponising criminal prosecutions, Ms [Rayhan] Asat said.”

CEFR level