Lebanon at increasing risk of Lawfare

Lebanon at increasing risk of Lawfare

Brazil based Lawfare Institute identify growing use of corporate Lawfare.

(São Paulo, 24 June 2021) The influential Brazil based Lawfare Institute has identified Lebanon as being a country of concern in the growing use of the misuse of law for political and commercial purposes.

Former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva speaking from São Paulo addressed a seminar at King’s College London – a top 10 global university – for the launch of the new publication Lawfare: Waging War through Law.

During the King’s College London event, Lebanon was identified as a country of growing concern particularly in the area of Business Lawfare where corporate entities use the tactics of Lawfare with an aim to destroy commercial and consumer opponents. Lebanese banks were identified as an area of significant concern.

Lawfare is the misuse and abuse of law for political, commercial and military ends and the authors of Lawfare: Waging War through Law Cristiano Zanin Martins, Valeska Teixeira Zanin Martins and Rafael Valim explore the growing use of Lawfare around the world.

Well known Lawfare tactics include the abuse of existing laws to delegitimise and harm the adversary´s public image, use of legal procedures to restrain their freedom, to intimidate opponents, to silence them, influence public opinion negatively to anticipate judgments and curtail their right to an unbiased defence.

 

Lawfare and Commercial Disputes in Lebanon

There have been increasing reports from Lebanon of practices which are common to Lawfare, including misinformation and disinformation from parts of the media in order to influence the public’s perception of legal cases. Furthermore, the Lawfare Institute has expressed concern in the lack of transparency around reports of the use of government ministers as paid advisors to high profile consumer businesses.

Lebanon is of particular interest in Brazil with approximately 7 million people either having full or partial Lebanese descent. Many Brazilian citizens, who also hold Lebanese, European or American citizenship, have close commercial links with Lebanon including as individual consumers with Lebanese banks. Brazilian lawyers are exploring legal avenues similar to those being used by consumers in Europe to help individual consumers retrieve their life savings held by Lebanese banks.

Co-founder of the Lawfare Institute and President Lula’s lawyer, Valeska Teixeira Zanin Martins of São Paulo based Teixeira Zanin Martins Advogados said:

“We are concerned about the ever-growing use of Lawfare globally and Lebanon has been identified as an area of particular concern. Reports coming from Beirut indicate that Lebanon is witnessing a growth in corporate Lawfare where we are seeing aggressive legal tactics employed to try and deprive the legal rights open to individuals in Lebanon as well as those with links to Lebanon in Australia, Brazil, United States, United Kingdom and across Europe.”

The King’s College London Lawfare seminar did recognise that many individual Lebanese journalists are at the forefront of identifying and challenging when law is being misused for political or commercial reasons recognising that they were working in very difficult circumstances. These Lebanese journalists show the world how those in authority can be challenged and held to account.

 

Lawfare

The term lawfare was created in 2001 by US army major General Charles Dunlap, and has been studied ever since in major universities such as Harvard in the United States and SOAS in the United Kingdom.

The Lawfare Institute’s mission is to produce scientific content on lawfare and the analysis of emblematic cases of the phenomenon. The Institute was created in 2017 on the initiative of lawyers Valeska Teixeira Martins, Cristiano Zanin Martins and Rafael Valim, based on the observation that the law is being used strategically in several countries to obtain illegitimate purposes of a geopolitical, political, financial or commercial nature.

The Kings College London event took place on Tuesday 22 June 2021 with former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, President Lula’s lawyers and authors Cristiano Zanin Martins and Valeska Teixeira Zanin Martins, co-author Rafael Valim Visiting Professor at the University of Manchester in the UK and Visiting Professor at Université Le Havre Normandie France, Professor Alfredo Saad-Filho Professor of Political Economy and International Development in the Department of International Development and John Watts, a UK based advisor to the Lawfare Institute.

Lawfare: Waging War through Law is published in the UK by Routledge.

Expert opinion issued on occurrence of lawfare in Ecuador

Expert opinion issued on occurrence of lawfare in Ecuador

Expert opinion issued on occurrence of lawfare in Ecuador

On October 18, 2018, Lawfare issued an opinion on the occurrence of Lawfare in Ecuador. These are the conclusions and suggestions:

“1. There are indications of the existence of a typical case of lawfare in the way in which the then Vice President JORGE GLAS ESPINEL has been dismissed and, especially, the misinterpretation that has been made of the most favorable criminal law principle.

2. These signs have greater significance even within a Latin American context: a) by the serious background in Brazil with the illegitimate destitution of former President DILMA ROUSSEFF, b) the illegal imprisonment of LULA DA SILVA in a clear violation of procedural, constitutional, and conventional guarantees aggravated by the lack of adaptation in their internal order of the international obligation to ensure their electoral rights as recognized by the United Nations Human Rights Committee, and c) certain legal proceedings brought against the former President of Argentina, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.

3. The judicial proceedings against GLAS ESPINEL and CORREA DELGADO in progress, in our opinion, need to be observed simultaneously and permanently through the concept of external observers.

4. The simultaneous external observation with direct access to the judicial proceedings will allow in a subsequent report to concretely detect the existence of judicial pieces that could or not be defined – along with other elements already indicated – as typical supposed lawfare”.

The special rapporteur for the opinion was Prof. Pablo Ángel Gutiérrez Colantuono and the function of independent observer was carried out by Prof. Jacopo Paffarini. The work was coordinated by Valeska Teixeira Zanin Martins, Rafael Valim and Rafael Pereira Ferreira.

To have access to the full content of the opinion, click the links below:

Case admitted by the Lawfare Institute

Case admitted by the Lawfare Institute

Case admitted by the Lawfare Institute

On May 17, 2018 the Executive Committee of the Lawfare Institute received a letter from the Instituto de Pensamiento Político y Económico Eloy Alfaro in which it narrates serious facts that could be characterized as lawfare.
After a preliminary analysis of the situation described, the Executive Committee of the Lawfare Institute admitted the case and appointed as rapporteur the eminent Prof. Pablo Ángel Gutiérrez Colatuono, recognized Argentine professor and lawyer, who will be responsible for collecting the data on the case, analyzing them in depth and, at the end, issuing a conclusive report on the possible occurrence of lawfare.
To report cases of lawfare, access the following link: http://lawfareinstitute.com/?page_id=252
Applicant: Instituto de Pensamiento Político y Económico Eloy Alfaro
Object: Possible practice of lawfare against former President Rafael Correa and his allies
Rapporteur: Prof. Pablo Ángel Gutiérrez Colantuono

International launch of the Lawfare Institute

International launch of the Lawfare Institute

International launch of the Lawfare Institute

The attorneys Cristiano Zanin Martins, Valeska Teixeira Martins and Rafael Valim will promote on December 5, at the University of London in England, the international launch of the newly created Lawfare Institute.

The consulting board is composed of jurists and professors from Europe, the United States, Brazil and Latin America. Among them are the South-African professor and anthropologist John Comaroff, the Argentine professor and lawyer Pablo Ángel Gutiérrez Colantuono, the British media specialist Sir Nicholas Lloyd, the American historian and professor James Naylor Green, from Brown University, the Brazilian historian and professor Sidney Chalhoub, the Brazilian jurist and professor Lenio Streck, the appellate judge Geraldo Prado, the lawyer José Roberto Batochio, and others.

Lawfare is a worldwide phenomenon and consists in the misuse of the laws for political purposes. The SOAS University of London is currently a point of reference in international law studies in England, where the term was used for the first time.

The term lawfare was used in Brazil by the defense of former President Lula to describe the violations of legal procedures by the Brazilian courts, as he was a victim of a collective act to discredit him and remove him from public life. Preventing Lula’s election is the struggle of some judges, public prosecutors and most part of the press in Brazil.

We must fight the constant attacks and violations against the right of defense, and for that reason, the Lawfare Institute was created. Among the goals of the Institute is fighting the abuse of the laws to damage an adversary’s public image and the constraint of liberty, as well as promoting the use of lawful and fair defense mechanisms.

In this war, like in all others, the truth is the first victim. The Justice system and the Laws cannot be used for political persecution. If this can happen to one person, it can also happen to a whole Nation.