Lawfare

Lawfare is a recently coined word not yet appearing in the Oxford English Dictionary, a portmanteau of the words 'law' and 'warfare', said to describe a form of asymmetric warfare. Lawfare is asserted by some to be the illegitimate use of domestic or international law with the intention of damaging an opponent, winning a public relations victory, financially crippling an opponent, or tying up the opponent's time so that they cannot pursue other ventures such as running for public office, similar to a SLAPP lawsuit. Other scholars see it more neutrally as a reference to both positive and negative uses of law as an instrument of warfare or even to the legal debates surrounding national security and counterterrorism.