Lawfare no domínio marítimo: a guerra jurídica entre Rússia e Ucrânia de 2014 a 2024

Abstract

This study investigates the strategic use of law as an instrument of coercion, legitimation, and power projection in contemporary maritime disputes, based on the concept of lawfare. The research takes as a case study the conflict between Russia and Ukraine in the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, analyzing how state actors mobilize legal norms, international litigation, and multilateral treaties to support political claims and delimit the use of force. Employing a qualitative, transdisciplinary, and documentary approach, the study examines the evolution of lawfare as a dimension of hybrid warfare, integrating normative mechanisms, legal narratives, and geopolitical operations. The research demonstrates that the selective instrumentalization of legal instruments—such as the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS)—has become an operational vector of strategic disputes, especially after the annexation of Crimea, the construction of the Kerch Bridge, and the imposition of naval blockades by Russia. In response, Ukraine articulates a defensive legal strategy before international courts. It is concluded that maritime lawfare reconfigures the contemporary battlefield by transferring conflicts from the kinetic to the normative domain, demanding doctrinal adaptation by coastal states such as Brazil, in view of the risks and potentialities of using law as a strategic weapon.