Who Can Do What to Whom?

Guterres, Lula and Trump brought three readings of power, sovereignty and international order to the General Assembly. Applied through Lawfare4All's tools, they enable a question that precedes ideological disputes: who may exercise power, against whom, under which rules and with what possibility of challenge?

Lawfare4All Editorial · 2026-09-22

New York received three addresses this Tuesday which, read together, offer a particularly useful window into the contemporary dispute over the exercise of power. António Guterres opened the General Debate of the 81st United Nations General Assembly; Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva spoke for Brazil, which traditionally opens the statements by Member States; Donald Trump followed for the United States, the host country.

More than comparing positions on wars, democracy, artificial intelligence, organized crime, inequality or sovereignty, the relevant task is to observe the architecture of power contained in these addresses. In different registers, all three deal with a common question: who has the legitimacy to act when national interests, international institutions and legal norms come into tension?

This is precisely where the speeches become material for Lawfare4All's analytical tools.

Guterres and the dispute over power

António Guterres's speech offers an especially useful starting point. By organizing his intervention around major tests concerning war and peace, inequalities, the climate crisis and artificial intelligence, the Secretary-General places power at the center of the international problem.

In the case of inequality, his formulation is explicit: it is not merely an economic issue, but an issue of power, involving access to opportunities, resources and voice. The same concern runs through the other themes. The problem is not simply the existence of power, but the conditions under which it is exercised, distributed and subjected to rules.

This perspective is particularly relevant to the analysis of lawfare. The instrumentalization of law does not necessarily begin before a judge. It may be preceded by narrative shifts, legal classifications, institutional asymmetries or mechanisms of coercion that profoundly alter actors' capacity to defend their interests.

The methodological point, therefore, is not to decide in advance who is right. It is to identify the structure: who exercises power, upon whom it falls, which norm legitimizes it and which mechanisms allow it to be challenged.

TOOL IN USE — LAWFARE4ALL ASSESSMENT TOOL™ — What we are testing: asymmetry of power, extraterritoriality, exceptional measures, selective application, proportionality and the ability of affected actors to challenge decisions.

Lula: sovereignty as a limit on external power

Sovereignty occupies a central position in the Brazilian speech. Lula relates Brazil's political autonomy to the protection of its elections, its institutions and the State's capacity to establish its own rules, while also defending international cooperation on problems that cross borders.

From this perspective, sovereignty operates as a limit on the external projection of power. But Lawfare4All's method requires the principle itself to be tested. No political or legal category should be considered sufficient merely because a government invokes it.

The question becomes how to distinguish legitimate protection of sovereignty from situations in which the same principle might be used to weaken legitimate mechanisms of accountability or international cooperation. Sanctions, transnational investigations, police cooperation, the international protection of human rights and decisions by international institutions show how complex this boundary can be.

The analytical tool, therefore, neither validates nor rejects the Brazilian claim in advance. It examines its conditions and limits.

Trump: power projected beyond borders

Donald Trump's speech presents another configuration. National security, terrorism, organized crime, sanctions, military capacity and economic pressure appear associated with the possibility of American action in response to threats identified beyond its borders.

Again, the existence of this language does not allow a policy to be automatically classified as lawfare. What it does allow is the investigation of a central question: when an actor possesses enormous legal, economic, technological or military capacity to produce consequences beyond its own jurisdiction, which limits prevent law from being converted from a common rule into an asymmetric instrument of power?

The question is not exclusively American. The same test must be applied to China, Russia, the European Union, Brazil or any other actor capable of projecting authority beyond its own borders.

It is precisely this methodological symmetry that matters to Lawfare4All: the identity of the actor does not change the standard.

Assessment Tool™: looking for mechanisms, not villains

Applied to the speeches, the Lawfare4All Assessment Tool™ is not intended to classify political leaders. It serves to identify risk structures.

The analysis considers asymmetry between actors, the extraterritorial effects of decisions, the use of exceptional regimes, the selective application of norms, the proportionality of responses and, above all, the existence of effective means of challenge.

This shift is essential. Instead of asking whether a particular leader “practices lawfare,” we examine whether the legal and institutional architecture described or defended increases the possibilities for the instrumentalization of law.

TOOL IN USE — NARRATIVE RISK RESPONSE™ (NRR™) — What we are testing: how a political or institutional narrative moves from identifying an actor or threat toward exceptional treatment or coercive measures. Analytical sequence: identification → threat construction → exceptionalization → legitimation of coercion.

Before coercion, the narrative

Exceptional measures rarely appear without discursive preparation. A person, organization, State or behavior is first identified and then associated with a threat whose gravity may justify responses that would be difficult to accept under ordinary circumstances.

It is in this process that Narrative Risk Response™ helps separate the description of a threat, narrative construction and institutional consequence.

The three addresses contain different ways of defining risks. The analysis does not depend on agreeing or disagreeing with them. The point is to follow the passage from the characterization of the problem to the powers claimed in order to confront it.

The decisive question becomes less “does the threat exist?” and more “which powers does this characterization authorize, and which safeguards continue to function afterward?”

TOOL IN USE — PUBLIC INTELLIGIBILITY REVIEW™ (PIR™) — What we are testing: whether the public can clearly distinguish the alleged fact, the applicable rule, the authority exercising power and the mechanism available to review or challenge that decision.

Can citizens understand the chain of power?

Debates about national security, terrorism, sanctions, war, organized crime or the defense of democracy frequently mix political, legal and moral categories.

Public Intelligibility Review™ seeks to reconstruct this chain in an understandable way. What fact is being alleged? Which rule applies? Who has authority to act? Who may review the decision?

Between an accusation, threat or political diagnosis and the imposition of a consequence lies an institutional chain. When this chain disappears from public understanding, a political decision can acquire the appearance of an inevitable legal consequence.

Intelligibility, therefore, also operates as a mechanism for controlling power.

The reversibility test

The three speeches can also be submitted to a simple but demanding question: would the rule remain acceptable if the actors changed places?

Would a power claiming the capacity to produce legal effects beyond its borders accept an adversary using a similar mechanism against it? Would a government that restricts rights in the name of democratic protection recognize the same prerogative in its opponent? Would a State invoking sovereignty in the face of external pressure apply the same principle to governments with which it disagrees?

The reversibility test does not automatically resolve legal or political conflicts. Its function is to reveal possible asymmetries and inconsistencies in the application of principles.

A single standard

Lula, Trump and Guterres need not be placed in a rhetorical competition. The most analytically interesting material emerges when the addresses are submitted to the same methodology.

Who claims authority, what is its normative basis, upon whom does that authority produce effects, which guarantees exist, how proportionate is the response and what real possibility of challenge is available?

Applied in this way, the Assessment Tool™, Narrative Risk Response™ and Public Intelligibility Review™ do not determine in advance who is right. They make visible the structure through which power seeks to legitimize its decisions.

This is an especially important point for the study of lawfare. Law remains one of the principal instruments available to limit power, but it may also be used to exercise it.

For this reason, perhaps the most useful question left by the General Assembly speeches is not who controls power today.

It is what happens to the rule when power changes hands.

Lawfare4All tools applied

• Assessment Tool™ — Detecting structural conditions and indicators associated with possible legal instrumentalization.
• Narrative Risk Response™ (NRR™) — Tracing how narratives can construct threats and create legitimacy for exceptional measures.
• Public Intelligibility Review™ (PIR™) — Testing whether citizens can understand the factual, legal and institutional chain behind an exercise of power.

Explore our methodology →