The two enemies of the people are criminals and the government, so let's bind the latter with the chains of the Constitution so they don't become the legalized version of the former. - Neither known.
Argentina: From Lawfare to Fascist Neocolony
By Claudia Rocca: Jurist Claudia Rocca analyzes the strategy of imperialism in Our America, which undermines the democratic foundations of the affected states by compromising their capacity for self-determination and promoting subordination to external agendas.
In recent months, the judiciary has played a leading role in our region: from the lawfare orchestrated against the former president of Argentina to the historic convictions against former presidents of the regional far-right, such as Álvaro Uribe Vélez in Colombia and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil. However, it is worth clarifying that, quite contrary to what the mainstream press attempts to portray as similarities between lawfare cases and those brought before justice for proven crimes, the two respond to very different natures. To better understand lawfare as an imperialist strategy in Our America, we asked Claudia Rocca of the American Association of Jurists for her contribution to this debate:
"Lawfare is a political war through the judicial and media channels, responding to economic, political, and geopolitical interests. It involves judges, prosecutors, media corporations, journalists and opinion leaders, police, embassy officials, and intelligence agents, both local and foreign.
It is characterized by the abuse of pretrial detention, plea bargains, and verdicts fabricated without respect for due process, through harassment and demoralization through the media. It includes raids on political offices and militant homes, persecution and threats against family members, forcing them into exile and political refuge, and manipulating and spreading fear among those involved in certain political processes.
In recent years, these tactics have been used against dozens of political leaders and/or former government officials in Argentina, Ecuador, Chile, Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, and El Salvador, linked to governments, programs, or projects that challenge neoliberal orthodoxy to a greater or lesser extent.
This war operates "from above," through a judicial apparatus that places itself above the legislative and executive branches, expanding the scope of maneuver and power for judges, who become involved in political operations, triggering a loss of balance between branches, allowing for a growing "juristocracy," and, in many cases, normalizing the double standard of the law. This historical process of repositioning the judiciary above all others is characteristic of neo-constitutionalism, the predominant legal order in much of Europe and Latin America in recent decades.
The rise of the judicial apparatus and selectivity in judicial cases are articulated with a leading role of the media, which operates to criminalize political sectors or leaders. Added to this are the voices of "experts," many of them from U.S. "think tanks," who are attributed with a supposed "force of truth" in the mainstream media and social networks.
The role played by U.S. government agencies such as USAID and others, as well as U.S. private sector interests, is striking: both are involved in both the judicial processes and the outcomes and events following them, demonstrating the instrumentalization of the judicial-media apparatus in favor of foreign economic, political, and geopolitical objectives, which share interests and business dealings with local privileged minorities.
But this mechanism does not end within the domestic sphere. For those nations where the new Western economic power has failed to undermine national and sovereign political processes, the same prescriptions are applied using the international system of currency flows, tariffs and trade routes, money laundering prevention systems, immigration control systems, sanctions and unilateral coercive measures, and charges and accusations based solely on decisions made by administrative bodies and, therefore, merely political decisions of the US administration.
Several military publications consider lawfare to be one of the components of new "unconventional" wars, such as hybrid warfare. This war can be waged by state or non-state actors, acting with all forms of the spectrum of this type of warfare, including conventional military capabilities, unconventional combat tactics and units, or other terrorist actions, chaos planning through acts of violence, cyberwarfare, financial warfare, or media warfare.
It will be enough to invoke the "illegal" nature of other states' laws/norms, which do not adhere to the Western canon, for them to be classified as violent ("unusual and extraordinary threat"), thus attempting to legitimize attacks that today take on multiple dimensions.
While, as we have said, lawfare constitutes a tool used by the state, the government, or privileged minorities at the local level, it is also a tool at the transnational level, implemented from the global north.
For nations that submit, this is the core of the colonial and dependency relations exacerbated by the expansion of capitalism. Within the framework of this unequal relationship, the US and its allies reorganize the landscape in favor of the interests of a transnational network of power, creating a kind of "legitimate legal order" and defining the scope of their jurisdiction, ignoring the sovereignty of weaker states that lack the capacity to impose their law by force or to resist.
Jurisdiction is not simply a rule; it determines which rules will be applied, where, how, and by whom. Therein lies the subjugating power of the Western power center over our Latin American countries, channeled through lawfare.
The establishment of this "juristocracy" has resulted in the judicialization of big politics and democracy, since by delegitimizing and neutralizing political leaders who are inconvenient for certain economic and geopolitical interests, it not only affected the individuals directly involved but also undermined the democratic foundations of the affected states, compromising their capacity for self-determination and promoting subordination to external agendas.
The Argentine Case
The judicial persecution of political and social leaders in Argentina has been developing since the end of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner's last term in office. At that time, figures parading in the media began to gain prominence, denouncing the alleged corruption of Kirchnerist officials without supporting evidence, but with great attention and impact provided by the mass media. The attacks were particularly focused on the figure of the president, and even led to the idea that she was the mastermind behind the death of prosecutor Nisman, despite the fact that all the evidence gathered in the investigation indicated that it was a suicide.
The federal criminal court, along with other high-ranking officials in the judiciary, became the main opposition party. This process was decisive in the victory of Mauricio Macri, whose administration plunged the country into a process of deindustrialization, concentration of wealth through financial speculation, surrender of strategic resources, and weakening of state capacity, while the criminalization of Kirchnerism in particular, and of grassroots social leaders in general, multiplied. Milagro Sala is the most paradigmatic example. In the latter part of his term, Macri incurred formidable debt in record time. The nearly $50 billion granted by the IMF in a completely irregular manner is part of the amount that subsequently fled the country.
As a result of the evident unviability of this government program and the social and economic deterioration it caused, Peronism won the presidential elections in 2019. But it clearly did not gain power. The lawfare regime did not budge one iota.
One of the most emblematic cases is undoubtedly the so-called "Vialidad" case, in which Cristina Fernández de Kirchner was sentenced to six years in prison for the crime of fraudulent administration. Within the framework of this process, the guarantees of defense in court, as provided for in Article 380 of the National Code of Criminal Procedure, based on Article 18 of the National Constitution and reinforced by the treaties comprising International Human Rights Law, have been violated; the set of rules on judicial conduct known as the Bangalore Principles (adopted by the United Nations Economic and Social Council in its Resolution E/CN.4/2003/65/Annex of November 2002, formally approved on January 10, 2003), have been violated, given the public and notorious lack of impartiality of the sentencing judge and his evident ties to the prosecutor's office. The judicial arbitrariness manifested in the proceedings against the vice president reflects the same patterns of persecution as in the political proscriptions of other Latin American leaders. This is clearly evident in a ruling that bears no relation to the evidence produced in the case file, which has not incorporated any elements that substantiate the conduct attributed to the former president.
After confirmation by the Court of Cassation—which failed to address any of the aforementioned arguments—in just two months, the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation upheld the conviction—while other cases wait for years or even decades. With the now-customary prior and precise media announcement, the unconstitutional ruling achieved its stated purpose from the outset: Cristina's banishment.
We can affirm that lawfare was a central factor in the rise to power of Javier Milei, a figure with sinister characteristics, driven and sustained by three centers of economic power: speculative finance and investment in strategic resources (such as JP Morgan, BlackRock, and others), the groups known as "techno-feudal lords"—masters of the networks—and the media.
From the moment he took office, Milei carried out a process of dismantling the State; The hollowing out of public policies for development, human rights, inclusion, gender, and diversity, within the framework of a process of economic devastation; the deployment of repressive measures with the expansion of security forces and agencies, aimed at silencing social protest in the face of the hollowing out of a state system for the effective protection of economic, social, and cultural rights; and the brutal impoverishment of the population.
Massive layoffs occurred, while companies, strategic resources, and other public assets were privatized. The attempt to suppress labor rights, combined with the persecution of unions, social organizations, and the popular economy—criminal charges, the withdrawal of food and other benefits guaranteed by social programs that were abruptly discontinued—reveal a political project of accumulation in favor of concentrated sectors of the economy and financial speculation. Within the framework of an inflationary process, due to the deregulation of essential economic factors such as services, benefits, and prices in general, there was an abrupt loss of wage purchasing power and an increase in unemployment and poverty.
In 2024, small and medium-sized businesses recorded a loss of more than 217,000 jobs and the closure of 9,923 companies, according to Industriales Pymes Argentinos (IPA). The most affected sectors were construction and manufacturing, with 69,738 and 25,186 fewer jobs, respectively. In the public sector, more than 180,000 jobs were eliminated between November 2023 and May 2025. There was an increase in informal employment and semi-slavery working conditions.
The loss of income purchasing power, a result of the change in economic policy implemented by the current government, represented the largest monthly decline in the last 30 years (8.4 percent year-over-year in purchasing power).
There was a larger contraction in consumption, both in supermarket and self-service stores, as well as in retail stores across various sectors. In 2025, inflation is easing, the result of an unprecedented economic recession and deterioration across all factors. The human consequences are now evident and alarming.
This accelerated process of devastation was accompanied by fascist rhetoric and practices, reflecting contempt for the human condition, a supremacist, patriarchal outlook, and the most servile and undignified subservience to the interests of the United States and the genocidal Zionist government of Israel, as vociferated by the Argentine president.
In conclusion, we could attempt at this point to define fascism in the 21st century as a social practice manifested through political movements, driven by the new economic power prevailing in the West, which use hatred and polarization as strategies to undermine liberal democracy, shatter the social order, and the rule of law. They thus establish authoritarian regimes and nepotism, with economic programs that foster accelerated processes of wealth concentration, benefiting the transnational groups to which they respond and fostering financial speculation. Their consequences are the destruction of social organizations, the exclusion of large majorities, economic devastation, and repression as a method of social control.
The Argentine example—like so many others—shows us that submission to the current Western economic power represented by the United States only brings consequences infinitely more tragic than the cost of resisting it. Not only is there no benefit or mercy: it leaves us without a horizon and without a future. Therefore, yielding or submitting is not an option for a sovereign people.
Claudia Rocca is president of the Argentine branch and second continental vice president of the American Association of Jurists, lawyer, university professor specializing in Public Law and Economic Law.
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