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Borderline Crime

Borderline Crime

Fugitive Criminals and the Challenge of the Border, 1819-1914

by Bradley Miller and The Osgoode Society

Published by: University of Toronto Press

Series: Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History

Imprint: University of Toronto Press

Digital download
9781487512835
Published: September 2016

Digital download
9781487512842
Published: October 2016

Description
Contents
Authors
Praise

From 1819 to 1914, governments in northern North America struggled to deal with crime and criminals migrating across the Canadian-American border. Limited by the power of territorial sovereignty, officials were unable to simply retrieve fugitives and refugees from foreign territory.

Borderline Crime examines how law reacted to the challenge of the border in British North America and post-Confederation Canada. For nearly a century, officials ranging from high court judges to local police officers embraced the ethos of transnational enforcement of criminal law. By focusing on common criminals, escaped slaves, and political refugees, Miller reveals a period of legal genesis where both formal and informal legal regimes were established across northern North America and around the world to extradite and abduct fugitives. Miller also reveals how the law remained confused, amorphous, and often ineffectual at confronting the threat of the border to the rule of law. This engrossing history will be of interest to legal, political, and intellectual historians alike.

Chapter 1: Introduction

Part I: Sovereign Borders and Criminal Law in Northern North America

Chapter 2: The Everyday Challenge of Sovereignty

Chapter 3: The Low and High Law of Abduction in the Border Zone

Part II: Uncertainty, Amorphousness, and Non-Law

Chapter 4: International Law and Supranational Justice in Northern North America

Chapter 5: The Non-Law of Refugees in British North America

Part III: Law Formation in the Treaty Era

Chapter 6: Civilization on the Continent: Law Reform and Imperial Power

Chapter 7: Law Formation in the Common Law World

Chapter 8: Conclusion

Bradley Miller is an assistant professor in the Department History at the University of British Columbia, where he holds the Keenleyside Chair in Canada and the World.

‘Miller’s excellent book is a welcome addition to work on extradition examining everyday legal practices and their underlying jurisprudence foundations… It provides an important study into the intersection between international, British imperial and Canadian law.’
~Emily Whewell, Legal History vol 25:2017

"An important and helpful book for legal historians of the Canada-US border, [Borderline Crime] lays a framework for examining how the border was interpreted as a legal and political entity during its most formative years in the nineteenth century. "
~Brandon Dimmel, BC Studies no. 198, Summer 2018

"This is a scholarly, closely argued book, but it will have appeal to a wide audience. Bradley Miller illustrates his themes with engaging and entertaining examples and writes clearly and concisely…Borderline Crime should become required reading in colonial, early Canadian, and North American international and diplomatic history."
~Lori Chambers, Lakehead University, University of Toronto Quarterly, vol 87 3, Summer 2018