Lawfare

Book excerpt: In Lawfare: The Criminalization of Democratic Politics in the Global South, Zaffaroni, Caamaño and Vegh Weis offer an account of the misuse of the law to criminalize progressive political leaders in Latin America. Indeed, more and more popular political leaders in the region are being imprisoned or prosecuted, even while in power. Inacio Lula da Silva is the quintaessential case of this worrying process. Despite the centrality of this juridical-political phenomenon in Latin America, it is little known to the Anglo-Saxon public. This book aims to fill this gap. In an accessible style, the authors deconstruct the legal language and the main problematics of lawfare, drawing attention to the fact that it may end up destroying the rule of law in order to promote the most cruel forms of neoliberalism.