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.

Just a few months after the entry into force of the EU Framework Decision on the fight against organized crime, this book provides an unprecedented analysis of the national and European legislation on organized crime. The book provides a critical examination of the European policies and legal instruments to promote the harmonization and approximation of criminal law in this field (including the United Nations Convention on Transnational Organized Crime). The current level of harmonization among EU Member States and the approximation to the standards of the new Framework Decision are discussed in detail, with the help of tables, graphs and maps. The results highlight the problems surrounding the international legal instruments and the inconsistencies of the national approaches to combating organized crime.

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.

The Oxford Handbook of Criminal Law reflects the continued transformation of criminal law into a global discipline, providing scholars with a comprehensive international resource, a common point of entry into cutting edge contemporary research and a snapshot of the state and scope of the field. To this end, the Handbook takes a broad approach to its subject matter, disciplinarily, geographically, and systematically. Its contributors include current and future research leaders representing a variety of legal systems, methodologies, areas of expertise, and research agendas. The Handbook is divided into four parts: Approaches & Methods (I), Systems & Methods (II), Aspects & Issues (III), and Contexts & Comparisons (IV). Part I includes essays exploring various methodological approaches to criminal law (such as criminology, feminist studies, and history). Part II provides an overview of systems or models of criminal law, laying the foundation for further inquiry into specific conceptions of criminal law as well as for comparative analysis (such as Islamic, Marxist, and military law). Part III covers the three aspects of the penal process: the definition of norms and principles of liability (substantive criminal law), along with a less detailed treatment of the imposition of norms (criminal procedure) and the infliction of sanctions (prison law). Contributors consider the basic topics traditionally addressed in scholarship on the general and special parts of the substantive criminal law (such as jurisdiction, mens rea, justifications, and excuses). Part IV places criminal law in context, both domestically and transnationally, by exploring the contrasts between criminal law and other species of law and state power and by investigating criminal law's place in the projects of comparative law, transnational, and international law.

Although Article 23(5) of EU Regulation 1/2003 provides that competition law fines ‘shall not be of a criminal law nature’, this has not prevented certain criminal law principles from finding their way into European Union (EU) competition law procedures. Even more significantly, the deterrent effect of competition law fines has led courts in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom (UK), as well as the European Court of Human Rights, to conclude that competition law proceedings can lead to a criminal charge. This book offers the first book-length study of whether courts do indeed apply criminal law principles in competition law proceedings and, if so, how these principles are adapted to the needs and characteristics of competition law. Focusing on competition law developments (both legislative and judicial) over a period of twenty years in three jurisdictions – the Netherlands, the UK and the EU – the author compares how each of the following (criminal law) principles has emerged and been interpreted in each jurisdiction’s proceedings: freedom from self-incrimination; non bis in idem; burden and standard of proof; legality and legal certainty; and proportionality of sanctions. The author offers proposals involving both legislative and judicial actions, with examples of judges invoking criminal law principles to develop an appropriate level of safeguards in competition law proceedings. The book shows that criminal law can provide a rich source of inspiration for the judiciary on the appropriate level of legal safeguards in competition law proceedings. As such, it provides an important source of information and guidance for lawyers and judges dealing with competition law matters. "The work is well argued and well researched. Indeed, it is almost encyclopaedic in its use and citation of case law and secondary material....This book provides a valuable resource for anyone (whether as advocate, investigator, adjudicator or academic researcher) who wishes to understand how these criminal law principles are used in, and to protect those subject to, administrative law-based competition investigations.” Bruce Wardhaugh (Lecturer at the University of Manchester) Common Market Law Review, 2021, vol 58, issue 1, page 236

The Law of the European Union is a complete reference work on all aspects of the law of the European Union, including the institutional framework, the Internal Market, Economic and Monetary Union and external policy and action. Completely revised and updated, with many newly written chapters, this fifth edition of the most thorough resource in its field provides the most comprehensive and systematic account available of the law of the European Union (EU). Written by a new team of experts in their respective areas of European law, its coverage incorporates and embraces many current, controversial, and emerging issues and provides detailed attention to historical development and legislative history of EU law. Topics that are constantly debated in European legal analysis and practice are touched on in ways that are both fundamental and enlightening, including the following: .powers and functions of the EU law institutions and relationship among them; .the principles of equality, loyalty, subsidiarity, and proportionality; .free movement of persons, goods, services, and capital; .mechanisms of constitutional change – treaty revisions, accession treaties, withdrawal agreements; .budgetary principles and procedures; .State aid rules; .effect of Union law in national legal systems; .coexistence of EU, European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR), and national fundamental rights law; .migration and asylum law; .liability of Member States for damage suffered by individuals; .competition law – cartels, abuse of dominant position, merger control; .social policy, equal pay, and equal treatment; .environmental policy, consumer protection, public health, cultural policy, education, and tourism; .nature of EU citizenship, its acquisition, and loss; and .law and policy of the EU’s external relations. The fifth edition embraces many new, ongoing, and emerging European legal issues. As in the previous editions, the presentation is notable for its attention to how the law relates to economic and political realities and how the various policy areas interact with each other and with the institutional framework. The many practitioners and scholars who have relied on the predecessors of this definitive work for years will welcome this extensively revised and updated edition. Those coming to the field for the first time will instantly recognize that they are in the presence of a masterwork that can always be turned to with profit and that helps in understanding the rationale underlying any EU law provision or principle.

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