Judging Borders : Expanding the Canada-United States Border Through Legal Decision Making

This chapter considers the role jurists have in expanding the space(s) of border work, by specifically investigating the way a challenge to the Safe Third Country Agreement was taken up within Canadian courts. Using <u>Canada Council of Refugees v. Canada</u> as a case study, this chapter re-centers our discussion of borders as legal spaces by examining how lawyers and judges frame the legal space of the border. The chapter proceeds by first explaining <u>Canada Council v. Canada</u> and its trajectory through the courts. By showing the way legal standing is made and spaces of bordering are conceptualized, lawyers and judges alike open up new territory to the work of bordering. By focusing on the law, which privileges establishing clarity and setting up relational positions, this chapter investigates how legal spaces are made. Drawing upon research into bracketing and performativity, this research suggests that understanding the way judges produce legal meaning at the border offers valuable insights toward the expansion and creation of new borders in North America