What if someone told you your debts were fake, your mortgage illegal, your taxes voluntary, and that with the right words you could free yourself from the system forever?
Across the world, people are falling for pseudolaw: a fast-growing movement built on conspiracy theories, quasilegal rituals and the promise that ordinary people can outsmart governments, banks and courts. Its followers call themselves sovereign citizens, freemen, state nationals or constitutional warriors. Critics call it a scam.
Outlawed takes readers deep inside a world of courtroom confrontations, YouTube gurus, viral traffic stops, online radicalisation and anti-government extremism. It traces the movement from its 19th-century origins to deadly shootings, attempted coups and bizarre court cases involving doppelgangers, secret trusts and accusations of treason and sorcery.
More than a book about fringe beliefs, it explores how pseudolaw thrives in times of inequality, crisis and distrust – and why people are willing to believe the system is rigged against them. Outlawed argues that defeating pseudolaw requires confronting the social, economic and legal failures that make it so seductive in the first place.
Disturbing and darkly funny, Outlawed tells the story of how conspiracy became law’s outlaw twin.
About the Author
Dr Harry Hobbs is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Law and Justice at the University of New South Wales, and the Director of the Pseudolaw Project at the Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law. The author of four books and more than 70 journal articles, Harry is a multiple award-winning scholar with broad and diverse research interests ranging from constitutional law and the rights of Indigenous peoples, to micronations and sovereign citizens.
A clear and accessible communicator, Harry has written widely in popular media, including articles for Guardian Australia, the Sydney Morning Herald, and The Australian, alongside the book How To Rule Your Own Country. Harry is regularly invited to discuss his scholarship with government and the courts, as well as on TV, radio and in print media.
Dr Stephen Young is an Associate Professor at the University of Otago’s Faculty of Law (Te Kaupeka Tatai Ture, Otakou Whakaihu Waka), who brings together rigorous research and relatable public engagement. His 2020 book Indigenous Peoples, Consent and Rights: Troubling Subjects earned him the Law Society of Australia and New Zealand’s Early Career Research Award. In 2023, he was further honoured with the University of Otago Early Career Award for Distinction in Research. He has published another book, an edited volume, special issues of journals, numerous book chapters, journal articles, blog posts and other commentaries. Beyond the academy, he is adept at speaking across diverse audiences, from academic book launches to the general public.
His media presence includes engagements through newsprint, radio, and television (specifically for commentary on pseudolaw and sovereign-citizen phenomena in Aotearoa), highlighting his ability to translate complex legal ideas into accessible, impactful narratives across multiple platforms. He specialises in Indigenous peoples and the law, human rights, and the troubling rise of sovereign citizen pseudolaw.
