Law Crossing Borders
Introducing Another Academic Law Blog?
By: Professor Maureen Duffy
I suspect that the most stressful part of starting a new blog is to think of a name for that blog. Or is that just me?
I started this project a while ago, before it became buried in the inevitable busy aspects of academic life. At that time, I took a survey on social media to ask what friends thought would be the best name for this blog.
Law Crossing Borders was the overwhelming favourite. It describes me, and it describes my work, which is interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary, international, and transnational, practice-based and academic, and involving various mixes of all of those things in different spaces.
The word “border” tends to evoke images of national borders, especially with so much current legal and political commentary about the alleged need for border control. But borders can exist in other, less obvious ways, in terms of rules of society, or of a given profession or academic discipline. Some of those borders may be useful, such as in law, with borders or guardrails supplied by constitutional norms. Some borders may not be useful, such as where they involve arbitrary limitations, not based on strong logic or in violation of foundational legal norms.
In terms of my work, I do write, quite a lot, about traditional national borders, focusing on the issue of law as it relates to migration. I often write about the implications of political posturing on the development of law, and about law’s impact on political posturing. I have done a lot of work on the potential for abuse in the area of “national security” law, drawing on different fields of law in different jurisdictions, especially constitutional law, criminal procedure, international law, and the aforementioned migration law. I focus on these areas in Canada, certainly, but also heavily in the U.S. and often beyond. Understanding law, in my mind, requires understanding how other academic fields can contribute to the practical development of law. I draw from history, linguistics, literature, and political science, among other areas, in trying to understand my own academic discipline. The unifying theme of my work involves legal protection for human rights. Governments cross multifaceted borders in violating human rights, so a response also requires the crossing of multifaceted borders. It also requires taking some of that conversation outside of the realm of the purely academic, to make these conversations more accessible to those not engaged in legal academia.
In some ways, Law Crossing Borders describes me as a person too, as I have never had much use for constraints imposed by societal rules, often imposed more heavily on women, on where I should live, how I should live, what I should do with my life, and when I should do those things. I have spent a good part of my adult life crossing back and forth across the Canada-U.S. Border, as I was born in the U.S., trained in law and practiced in the U.S., and then pursued graduate studies in law in Canada. I am now a Canadian academic, and a dual citizen, but I still frequently cross that national border. I recently spent a year, for example, as a Visiting Professor of Law, teaching Constitutional Law and First Amendment Law, at a law school in Texas. While unimpressed by arbitrary societal rules, I remain steadfast in reverence for the law, although how law is defined may be subject to debate.
So Law Crossing Borders it is. For now, the plan is to keep the posts to once a week, and to keep them relatively short and non-technical. I hope that crossing different borders will help to set this blog apart from the many wonderful, already established, law blogs out there. I reserve the right to also cross the border of my own self-imposed schedule and approach, to post more or less often, or differently, as events unfold.
I write this first post in February 2025. I am well aware of rapid developments in my home country of the U.S., and of threats being directed to my adopted country of Canada. I am cognizant of the calls to restrict academic freedoms and freedom of expression more generally, which are gaining strength around the world. I am also very aware of the history behind past, similar calls. Beyond this, I am painfully aware of the benefits and disadvantages to a presence on the Internet, especially for a woman. This blog will evolve as needed, but with an enduring adherence to law and respect for human rights. I will not cross those borders.
I suspect that the most stressful part of starting a new blog is to think of a name for that blog. Or is that just me?
I started this project a while ago, before it became buried in the inevitable busy aspects of academic life. At that time, I took a survey on social media to ask what friends thought would be the best name for this blog.
Law Crossing Borders was the overwhelming favourite. It describes me, and it describes my work, which is interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary, international, and transnational, practice-based and academic, and involving various mixes of all of those things in different spaces.
The word “border” tends to evoke images of national borders, especially with so much current legal and political commentary about the alleged need for border control. But borders can exist in other, less obvious ways, in terms of rules of society, or of a given profession or academic discipline. Some of those borders may be useful, such as in law, with borders or guardrails supplied by constitutional norms. Some borders may not be useful, such as where they involve arbitrary limitations, not based on strong logic or in violation of foundational legal norms.
In terms of my work, I do write, quite a lot, about traditional national borders, focusing on the issue of law as it relates to migration. I often write about the implications of political posturing on the development of law, and about law’s impact on political posturing. I have done a lot of work on the potential for abuse in the area of “national security” law, drawing on different fields of law in different jurisdictions, especially constitutional law, criminal procedure, international law, and the aforementioned migration law. I focus on these areas in Canada, certainly, but also heavily in the U.S. and often beyond. Understanding law, in my mind, requires understanding how other academic fields can contribute to the practical development of law. I draw from history, linguistics, literature, and political science, among other areas, in trying to understand my own academic discipline. The unifying theme of my work involves legal protection for human rights. Governments cross multifaceted borders in violating human rights, so a response also requires the crossing of multifaceted borders. It also requires taking some of that conversation outside of the realm of the purely academic, to make these conversations more accessible to those not engaged in legal academia.
In some ways, Law Crossing Borders describes me as a person too, as I have never had much use for constraints imposed by societal rules, often imposed more heavily on women, on where I should live, how I should live, what I should do with my life, and when I should do those things. I have spent a good part of my adult life crossing back and forth across the Canada-U.S. Border, as I was born in the U.S., trained in law and practiced in the U.S., and then pursued graduate studies in law in Canada. I am now a Canadian academic, and a dual citizen, but I still frequently cross that national border. I recently spent a year, for example, as a Visiting Professor of Law, teaching Constitutional Law and First Amendment Law, at a law school in Texas. While unimpressed by arbitrary societal rules, I remain steadfast in reverence for the law, although how law is defined may be subject to debate.
So Law Crossing Borders it is. For now, the plan is to keep the posts to once a week, and to keep them relatively short and non-technical. I hope that crossing different borders will help to set this blog apart from the many wonderful, already established, law blogs out there. I reserve the right to also cross the border of my own self-imposed schedule and approach, to post more or less often, or differently, as events unfold.
I write this first post in February 2025. I am well aware of rapid developments in my home country of the U.S., and of threats being directed to my adopted country of Canada. I am cognizant of the calls to restrict academic freedoms and freedom of expression more generally, which are gaining strength around the world. I am also very aware of the history behind past, similar calls. Beyond this, I am painfully aware of the benefits and disadvantages to a presence on the Internet, especially for a woman. This blog will evolve as needed, but with an enduring adherence to law and respect for human rights. I will not cross those borders.