“Corruption’s War on the Law” is the headline of an article recently published at Project Syndicate. There, former French magistrate and corruption fighter Eva Joly recounts the fate of those who have dared to confront powerful networks of corrupt officials and those who corrupt them. She concludes that when you try to fight corruption, corruption fights back: Maltese investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia was murdered by accomplices of those she was investigating. So was Rwandan anti-corruption lawyer Gustave Makonene. So too was Brazilian anticorruption activist Marcelo Miguel D’Elia.

In her article, Eva Joly, who received numerous threats for investigating and ultimately convicting senior French officials for corruption, explains that violence is just one way corruption “fights back.” She also describes how corruption officials have been removed from office through the use (or abuse) of the law for political ends. This form of intimidation, which Nigerians have dubbed “lawfare,” would now have been exported to Europe. Not content to intimidate or murder campaigners, journalists, and officials, the author concludes that corruption is now targeting the rule of law itself.