Regime Change Geopolitics: Obstacles to Freedom and Dignity

Abstract

This essay seeks to honour the anniversary of the Griffith Journal of Law & Human Dignity and its narrative commitment to freedom and dignity. The Journal is a light on law’s hill. I draw attention to a concern where that light should shine more brightly. The argument is that social movement weakness and social democratic sloth in rich countries has allowed regime change machinations (sometimes motivated by a desire to protect democracy) to devastate Indigenous peoples, women through high rates of femicide, and crush democracy. That inattention has fostered cascades of war and crime, and criminalization of markets and of states. The narrative sees the present as a time of some hope for struggles to reverse these tyrannies.