In this book legal and criminological scholars offer advanced analyses of the exercise of the substantive criminal law competences of the EU.

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.

The EU now possesses a clear legal basis for taking action on criminal law matters and steering the policy and practice of Member States in relation to crime and criminal law. However, for what is now an important area of law, there remains a striking absence or uncertainty regarding its theoretical basis, its legitimacy and its conceptual vocabulary. This book offers a review of the significance of EU criminal law and crime policy as a rapidly emerging phenomenon in European law and governance. Bringing together an international set of contributors, the book questions the nature, role and objectives of such 'criminal law', its relationship with other areas of EU policy and law, and the established rules of criminal law and criminal justice at the Member State level. Taking up such subjects as the application of criminal law across national boundaries and in the broader European context, effective enforcement, and the working out of a new European policy, the book helps to structure an increasingly significant subject in law which is still finding its direction. The book will be of great use and interest to researchers and students of EU law, criminal justice, and criminology.

In this book legal and criminological scholars offer advanced analyses of the exercise of the substantive criminal law competences of the EU.

This publication contains a number of papers which highlight examples of good practice in relation to criminal policy in member states of the Council of Europe, set out under the headlines of: crime prevention, mediation and other community sanctions, the prison system, and criminal procedure. Many of the papers are written by members of the Criminological Scientific Council of the Council of Europe (CSC).

This book takes stock of the development of criminal law in the context of the EC and the EU, and examines whether this has led to a European criminal policy, and interrogates the legal effects that European-level initiatives in the field have on national criminal law and on suspects.

The book examines how and according to which principles the enactment of European criminal legislation is legitimate. The approach adopted here focuses on the constitutionalization of criminal law (i.e., the growing importance of constitutional elements of the EU legal order and the ECHR regime within criminal law). Further, it shows how and why criminal law has a unique nature, and why it should not be equated with other fields of EU law.The book explains the basic research questions and methodologies, before turning to the nature of criminal law at the level of national law, and addressing the different levels of justification for criminal law. Further, it examines the most prominent features of European criminal law and the difference between general EU law and EU criminal law, as well as the theoretical ideals for European constitutional structures and criminal law. Examples of how the law in practice might not always be in keeping with these normative ideals serve to round out the coverage.