Chinese Lawfare
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After NATO leaders put China on the official agenda for the first time ever last December, the organization has continued to be very vocal in the first months of 2020 about China’s economic, military, and cyber activities.
Press reports in December quoted NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg as saying, “[T]he rises of China — the economic rise, the military rise — provides some opportunities but also some serious challenges.” Though characteristically diplomatic in tone and verbiage for the head of an international organization, Stoltenberg has maintained focus on China. On the heels of Secretary Esper’s speech at the Munich Security Conference in February, in which he said China’s “growing economic, military, and diplomatic power often manifests itself in ways that are threatening, coercive, and counter to the rules-based international order,” Stoltenberg followed suit, noting the shifting global balance of power stemming, in part, from China now having the second-largest defense budget in the world and heavy investment in new military capabilities.
NATO’s awakening to Chinese threats is strategic both politically and pragmatically. Politically, it signals to President Trump that the Allies stand with the United States (NATO’s biggest donor, by far) in its defense-based concerns about China, despite certain Member States’ governments allowing Chinese technology firms to operate on their countries’ civilian communications networks. Pragmatically, it reflects the reality that China’s activities and influence geographically surround NATO countries, with its being a dominant development presence to the south in Africa, and being an increasingly major player in the Arctic to the north.
But senior NATO officials have also gone further than repeating the typical talking points. Some have also taken opportunities to provide other insights and opine on areas of concern in their personal capacities. In February, NATO Legal Advisor Andres Munoz Mosquera and Nikoleta Chalanouli (who formerly served in several NATO elements) published the insightful essay, China, an Active Practitioner of Legal Warfare, on the Lawfire blog of Duke Law’s Center on Law, Ethics and National Security. In it, Mosquera and Chalanouli examine how China is methodologically leveraging the vocabulary and institutions of international law, human rights, and the rules-based international order in support of its propaganda agenda. The article can be found at https://sites.duke.edu/
Managing Director, Lexpat Global Services
Adam R. Pearlman is the Founder and Managing Director of Lexpat Global Services, an international law and consulting services firm specializing in security, defense, investigations, compliance, and training. A Special Advisor to and member of the Executive Committee of the Federalist Society’s International and National Security Law Practice Group, he is National Security Law expert and a proven senior leader with more than fifteen years of experience across the U.S. Departments of Justice, Defense, and State, in the White House, and with the U.S. Federal Judiciary.
Most recently, he served as the Senior Advisor for Legal Policy in the State Department’s Bureau of Counterterrorism, where he counseled senior officials on matters covering the entire spectrum of programs and operations to counter terrorism and violent extremism. While participating in sensitive diplomatic engagements and helping to coordinate military operations, he also advised in the development of sanctions policy and initiatives to build legal and operational capacity in partner nations. Mr. Pearlman also managed the Bureau’s participation in federal litigation and led U.S. delegations in multilateral forums concerning criminal justice and rule of law.
A former Associate Deputy General Counsel of the Department of Defense, Mr. Pearlman was agency counsel for complex civil and criminal national security matters in federal and military courts, and led the Supreme Court and appellate unit of the team dedicated to litigating classified counterterrorism cases. His earlier service in the Department of Justice spanned four litigating divisions and the Office of the Deputy Attorney General. His diverse experience included reviewing complex international transactions and mergers, and advising on immigration removal proceedings, human rights abuses, and terrorist financing investigations. Mr. Pearlman also served with distinction in Iraq as an early advisor to the Iraqi High Tribunal’s prosecution of Saddam Hussein. He was a law clerk for The Honorable Royce C. Lamberth, and during law school interned in the White House Counsel’s Office.
Mr. Pearlman is a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a Visiting Fellow at the National Security Institute at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, a member of the American Bar Association’s Africa Law Initiative Council, and a member of the Center for Strategic & International Studies’ Project on Nuclear Issues. He is a former National Security Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, vice chairman of the ABA Section of International Law’s committees on national security, and aerospace and defense, and also previously served as a liaison to the Board of Directors of the ABA’s Rule of Law Initiative. He has been co-editor of the U.S. Intelligence Community Law Sourcebook since 2011 and has published articles in the Harvard National Security Journal, Stanford Law & Policy Review, and Intelligence & National Security.
Mr. Pearlman earned his B.A., with honors, from UCLA, and his J.D., with honors, from The George Washington University Law School, where he was a member of the International Law Review. He also earned a Master of Science of Strategic Intelligence degree from the National Intelligence University, where he was the inaugural recipient of the Kornblum Award for national security law and ethics. Mr. Pearlman speaks and reads Portuguese at the intermediate level and holds certificates in international human rights law from the University of Oxford and in U.S. and international anti-corruption law from American University’s Washington College of Law. He is admitted to the State Bars of California and Virginia, as well as to the Bar of the United States Supreme Court.