Talk:Lawfare

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 Definition The use of international law as a component of national grand strategy, or asymmetrical warfare by national or non-national actors [d] [e]
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I am a bit confused by this article. David Finn 09:42, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Note that the article on Human Rights Watch describes lawfare as the use of international humanitarian law to limit the options of the United States and other nations. which isn't really the same as the introduction to this article. David Finn 10:00, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

I suggest, then, that the HRW article, which I believe started as an Eduzendium student project, change. If it's not clear, lawfare is an additional means of limiting the actions of sovereign states. Certainly, there are U.S. citizens that object to it, but you are just as likely to find China, Israel, Sudan, Rwanda, etc., objecting to it. It does go straight to the issue of there being few if any restrictions on national sovereignty, other than self-imposed ones. The reality is that there are no international governmental bodies with other than moral enforcement ability. Serbia and Kosovo were special cases where nations, or groups of nations, then imposed military sanctions after the legal ones.Howard C. Berkowitz 12:11, 13 September 2010 (UTC)
I see. I have a few comments about the article. Most articles start with The subject of this article is... but this one starts The subject of this article is, according to the CFR,.... Did the CFR originate the term? And if not, who did? The article doesn't make clear if this is a common term or if it was only ever used by the CFR. In fact, the article doesn't mention any other uses of the term, or how long it has been around, although it does mention that it is a new term if not a new concept.
There doesn't seem to be much use of the word lawfare in the article. Individual sections may benefit from more clear connection to the subject of the article - this may be because I am unfamiliar with the term and remain not clever enough to get it all in one go, but I had to reread this one several times and I think more use of simpler terms like lawfare is also connected with makes it more readable.
The article, if it is about limiting sovereign states by anyone, concentrates too much on others limiting the United States, especially in the introduction, and too little on the United States limiting other sovereign states. Lawfare by that definition seems to have played a major role recently in many activities, for example the sanctions against Iraq and Iran.
Some of this I could add myself, like some examples of when the term was actually used, but I would struggle to provide an intelligent overview of how lawfare is actually applied by states, which is why I haven't edited the article. I do think that there is room for improvement, especially with the introduction which I found a little confusing, although as always I thank you for the work that you have done so far. David Finn 10:05, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

(undent) Of course it's confusing. American lawyers helped define it. :-)

I'd suggest that China, for example, is as concerned as the US government with lawfare used against it. Sudan is concerned in a different way.

As far as origins, it is a neologism, and I first saw it used by the CFR. It's my guess that several sources originated it at roughly the same time, but it does have the flavor of American English.

I'm certainly open to improving this. While I don't always agree with their conclusions, there are some thoughtful commentaries in the Jack Goldsmith and John Yoo articles. Howard C. Berkowitz 17:27, 15 September 2010 (UTC)