Presenting an integrated approach to information exchange among law enforcement institutions within the EU, this book addresses the dilemma surrounding the need to balance the security of individuals and the need to protect their privacy and data. Providing the reader with a comprehensive analysis of information exchange tools, exploring their history, political background, the most recent legal modifications and the advantages and disadvantages of their use, it includes a comparison between different information exchange tools. Written by an author who has worked as a police officer, Home Affairs counsellor and academic, this is an important read for scholars working with EU Law, Criminal Procedure Law, and International Law as well as for practitioners who directly deal with international police cooperation or who perform criminal investigation both within and outside the EU.

The development of the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice has transformed the European Union and placed fundamental rights at the core of EU integration and its principles of mutual recognition and trust. The impact of the AFSJ in the development of an EU standard of fundamental rights, which has come to the fore since the Treaty of Lisbon, is a topic of great theoretical and practical importance. This is the first systematic academic study of the AFSJ and its implications from the point of view of fundamental rights. The contributions to this collection examine the normative and jurisprudential development of the AFSJ in order to assess its effects on the overall construction of the scope and standards of protection of EU fundamental rights in this particularly complex and sensitive field of integration. The expert contributors systematically map and critically assess this area of EU law, together with the relevant case-law.

Since the early 1990s, cross-border police and judicial cooperation has become a very important domain of the European Union. The Lisbon Treaty – if accepted by all the Member States – will certainly be a major stimulus to its further development in the field of internal security as well as in the field of external policy. In any event, the recent proposal for a new third comprehensive policy programme with regard to the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice – the so-called Stockholm Programme – foreshadows some of the changes the Brussels institutions and the Member States would like to embrace in the coming years. This book contains the contributions of scholars and practitioners to a conference on the future of police and judicial cooperation in the European Union that took place in November 2008 at Tilburg University. Referring to what has been achieved in this domain since the Treaty of Maastricht, these papers not only assess the proposals that have been put forward in successive policy documents relating to the Stockholm Programme, but they also pinpoint to the ongoing problems in the theory and practice of police and judicial cooperation within the European Union and to the ways in which these questions could best be solved.

Comparative Law for Spanish–English Speaking Lawyers provides practitioners and students of law, in a variety of English- and Spanish- speaking countries, with the information and skills needed to successfully undertake competent comparative legal research and communicate with local counsel and clients in a second language. Written with the purpose of helping lawyers develop the practical skills essential for success in today’s increasingly international legal market, this book aims to arm its readers with the tools needed to translate unfamiliar legal terms and contextualize the legal concepts and practices used in foreign legal systems. Comparative Law for Spanish–English Speaking Lawyers / Derecho comparado para abogados anglo- e hispanoparlantes, escrita en inglés y español, persigue potenciar las habilidades lingüísticas y los conocimientos de derecho comparado de sus lectores. Con este propósito, términos y conceptos jurídicos esenciales son explicados al hilo del análisis riguroso y transversal de selectas jurisdicciones hispano- y angloparlantes. El libro pretende con ello que abogados, estudiantes de derecho y traductores puedan trabajar en una segunda lengua con solvencia y consciencia de las diferencias jurídicas y culturales que afectan a las relaciones con abogados y clientes extranjeros. La obra se complementa con ejercicios individuales y en grupo que permiten a los lectores reflexionar sobre estas divergencias.

Adopting a practical perspective, this book provides a comprehensive analysis of the Directives adopted by the European Union concerning the rights of and safeguards for suspected and accused persons in criminal proceedings. It is the result of a collaboration between scholars and legal practitioners, and the first work of its kind to examine all relevant rights and safeguards in a single volume. The book offers readers panoramic, functional and in-depth insights into the EU legal framework and related European case law, and highlights the main issues and gaps identified by the authors in legal practice. In addition, it provides recommendations, guidelines and effective solutions applicable to criminal proceedings.

En 2019, 40 ans après la première élection des membres du Parlement européen au suffrage universel direct en 1979, les citoyens de l’Union étaient une neuvième fois appelés aux urnes. Entre ces deux dates, le Parlement européen a profondément changé, passant d’une simple assemblée consultative au colégislateur de droit commun d’une Union européenne en proie à de nombreuses crises. Les contributions au présent ouvrage, tirées des travaux d’un colloque international qui s’est tenu à l’Université de Bordeaux les 9 et 10 mai 2019, entendent dresser le bilan, les enjeux et les perspectives, tant des élections européennes de 2019 que de la démocratie représentative européenne de façon globale. In 2019, 40 years after the first election of members of the European Parliament by direct universal suffrage in 1979, the citizens of the Union were called to the polls for the ninth time. Between these two dates, the European Parliament changed dramatically, from a mere consultative assembly to the ordinary co-legislator of a European Union plagued by many crises. This book draws on an international conference held at the University of Bordeaux on May 9 and 10, 2019. The various contributions therein intend to take stock, examine the challenges and envisage the prospects, not only of the 2019 European elections but also of representative European democracy in general.

One of the most dynamic areas of EU law since the great changes brought to the EU constitutional order by the Amsterdam Treaty in 1999 has been cooperation in the fields of policing and criminal justice. Both fields have already been the subject of substantial legislative effort in the EU and an increasing amount of judicial activity in the European Court of Justice. In 2007 – after the Constitutional Treaty of 2004 failed – the new Reform Treaty planned very substantive changes to these policies. Bringing together a wide-ranging set of topics and contributors, this book enables readers to understand these changes by examining three key questions: how did we get to the Reform Treaty; what have been – and still are – the key struggles in competence; and how do the changes fit into the transformation of police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters in the EU?