Lawfare

Suppressing Dissent
Lawfare weaponizes legal systems—through foreign agent designations, strategic lawsuits, and abuse of international legal mechanisms—to suppress dissent while maintaining the appearance of legitimate legal process, with Russia’s 2012 foreign agent law serving as the global template for democratic backsliding.
Author
Affiliation

E. Rosalie Li

Information Epidemiology Lab

Published

February 17, 2026

Suppressing Dissent

Lawfare weaponizes legal systems—through foreign agent designations, strategic lawsuits, and abuse of international legal mechanisms—to suppress dissent while maintaining the appearance of legitimate legal process, with Russia’s 2012 foreign agent law serving as the global template for democratic backsliding.

FIMI Taxonomy by Information Epidemiology Lab.

Citation

BibTeX citation:
@article{li2026,
  author = {Li, E. Rosalie},
  title = {Lawfare},
  date = {2026-02-17},
  url = {https://fimi.infoepi.org/mechanisms/lawfare.html},
  langid = {en}
}
For attribution, please cite this work as:
Li, E. Rosalie. 2026. “Lawfare,” February. https://fimi.infoepi.org/mechanisms/lawfare.html.