Rather than looking at the law as simply one more LOO or weapon for defeating the threat; I believe there are more practical applications for legal approaches to mitigate the conditions that give rise to and empower these non-state threats.
One primary application is that of "Sanctuary." High time we evolved from the tired, and entirely incomplete cliché of "ungoverned spaces" and evolved to a more sophisticated and complete understanding of what truly provides sanctuary to these groups.
First, all insurgents and terrorists are by definition outlaws, so they have their first sanctuary right there. One is not constrained by the law once they opt to live and act outside it.
Second, being "non-state" actors they are also outside the rules and tools designed for the control of proper state behavior. We must develop new legal approaches that deny this 'sanctuary from consequences' much more effectively than current approaches.
Another critical component to sanctuary is the support of poorly governed populaces. Understanding what aspect of governmental actions contribute most significantly to such perceptions and then crafting and enforcing laws aimed at the governments that create these conditions we nick away at their sanctuary even more.
Next we need better laws for allowing short-notice, short-duration punitive raids to deal with critical nodes of networked terror organizations. There must be checks and balances, and full communicaitons and transparency behind the scenes (to the degree possible); but we can't keep rubbing other peoples faces in it when we decide we want to pop into their country to whack somebody.
This is just one area, but for me, if lawfare is just another rocket to shoot at the insurgent himself, it not much value added. I would expect lawyers to be a bit more clever and devious in their approaches...
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