Introduction
The idea of lawfare—a term combining law and warfare—has roots that stretch back to the earliest forms of organised conflict. The use of legal or quasi-legal reasoning to justify military action while simultaneously delegitimising an opponent can be traced to ancient Rome, where Roman law distinguished between citizens (jus civilis or civil law) and foreigners (jus gentium or the law of nations). Certain groups, particularly pirates, were classified as hostis humani generis—enemies of all humanity—and were therefore denied the protections normally afforded under Roman law, providing a legal pretext for extreme violence. During the colonial period, European powers often relied on treaty frameworks and legal instruments to legitimise territorial expansion and assert authority over indigenous populations. Hugo Grotius’ legal treatise, Mare Liberum (“The Free Sea”), argued that the sea was common to all nations, providing a legal foundation for Dutch naval and commercial expansion. The twentieth-century Soviet Union, as per historian Christi Scott Bartman, repeatedly manipulated international law to justify military interventions. Examples include creating false justifications for violating non-aggression pacts with its neighbours and leveraging its influence on the definition of aggression to justify invasions, such as in Finland (1939), Hungary (1956) and Afghanistan (1979).
