ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the role of civil society in making peace at the border. The rapid expansion of border protest, the creation of new global solidarities, and the spread of universal human rights norms suggest that a preferred future based on relaxed territorial borders may be closer than we think. This preferred future is one closely connected to but necessarily determined by current empirical patterns; it is based on a pragmatic vision of reality rather than pure fantasy. It is a future with open borders and less violence inflicted on those who cross without legal authorization; where border-related death, detention and deportation are anomalies; where border control is demilitarized; where the punitive and security elements have been extracted; where citizenship no longer predicts human rights protections; and where human security becomes the ultimate value. In imagining how to realize this future, I look to border protests for the guidance, concrete goals and practices that may lead to harm reduction at the border. On the basis of these observations, three additional conditions that build on but extend existing civil society practices and goals are suggested: a global border march, as a mass act of civil disobedience; demands for universal legal personhood; and the creation of new institutions, including a mobile human rights court and participatory border governance, which are responsive and accountable to a globalizing civil society, particularly those most affected by contemporary border control – paperless migrants.
