Crowe on 'Pseudolaw, Folk Law and Natural Law: How to Tell the Difference’

Professor Jonathan Crowe of the University of Southern Queensland School of Law and Justice has published a new paper titled 'Pseudolaw, Folk Law and Natural Law: How to Tell the Difference'.  The paper appears as a chapter in the edited collection Pseudolaw and Sovereign Citizens (Hart, 2025) (edited by Harry Hobbs, Steven Young and Joe McIntyre).  Here is a description:

"Pseudolaw presents false or distorted, but superficially plausible claims about legal doctrine. It is a dangerous and costly social phenomenon, with the potential to undermine social cohesion and the rule of law. Pseudolaw is dangerous, in part, because it is easily confused with two other phenomena that play important and legitimate, albeit widely overlooked, roles in legal processes: namely, folk law and natural law. This paper explicates the concepts of folk law and natural law, including their relationship to positive law and their place in legal decision-making. It distinguishes these concepts from pseudolaw, while also explaining why they tend to be conflated with it. I argue that folk law and natural law, properly understood, are crucial components of social cohesion and the rule of law; pseudolaw is harmful partly because it obscures and distorts the proper task of these notions in supplementing positive legal enactments."