The legal organization of Dutch environmental criminal law The penalization of environmental offences in the Netherlands differs from the penalization of classic offences such as murder or theft. Except for an occasional environmental offence in the Criminal Code and except for the applicability of, for example, forgery in environmental cases, penalization of environmental offences takes place via the Economic Offences Act. At the time that this Act was realized in 1950 its purpose was to protect the restoration of the economic order after the Second World War and it initially only comprised economic offences. From the seventies onwards the legislator… Read more

Introduction The common approach to fight crime is to collect evidence, charge the defendant in a criminal trial and, if proven guilty, to impose criminal sanctions such as fines or imprisonment. Most legal systems also provide for the possibility to confiscate the proceeds of crime following a criminal conviction. As organised crime has evolved, attempts have been made by governments and international institutions to fight it through this traditional criminal law approach. In order to be better able to obtain a criminal conviction of organised criminals, the criminalisation of money laundering is perhaps the most known measure. However, the common… Read more

Introduction – The Relevance and Importance of the Criminal Charge Question Counter Terrorism Financing (CTF) asset freezing entails the suspension of access to financial assets of persons or organizations who and which are considered to be engaged in committing or facilitating the commission of terrorist acts. The listing-decisions that precede the asset freezes also entail the prohibition of making assets available to the target individual or organization. Doctrinally, asset freezes are temporary administrative law measures with preventive security purposes, issued non-judicially and not reliant on criminal standards such as a conviction or indictment and which can therefore be issued in… Read more

The article traces the genesis and content of Directive 2010/64/EU on the right to interpretation and translation in criminal proceedings – the first criminal law measure adopted under the Lisbon Treaty and the initial step in the Council’s Roadmap on procedural rights. It outlines the background of failed earlier initiatives, the political dynamics between the Commission, Member States, and the European Parliament, and the negotiations that led to the final text. The Directive sets common minimum standards for interpretation and translation, including communication between defendants and their lawyers, translation of essential documents, and quality assurance. It represents a landmark in strengthening fair trial rights and an early test case for post-Lisbon EU criminal law legislation.

The Lisbon Treaty has opened up a new chapter in the history of European criminal law.
The purpose of this analysis is to guide the reader through the main changes in this area, as introduced by the Lisbon Treaty. Therefore, the present analysis is a follow-up to previous work by the author before entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty − thereby seeking to provide an account of the status of EU criminal law post-Lisbon Treaty. The paper has been structured into seven sections. Section one deals with a short introduction to the evolution of criminal law at the EU level. Section two outlines the framework of the criminal law in the Lisbon Treaty. Section three deals more specifically with the emergency brake and enhanced cooperation procedure as well as the possible establishment of a European Public Prosecutor. Thereafter, Section four looks more broadly at the Court of Justice’s jurisdiction in … Read more

Introduction EU-US counter-terrorism cooperation has been an area of EU external relations with substantial growth in the recent past. The political momentum for such cooperation was boosted post-9/11 and resulted in the conclusion of a number of international agreements between the European Union and the United States. Concluded primarily under the third pillar, these agreements have been subject to considerable criticism in Europe, both in terms of democracy and legitimacy and in terms of substance and the compatibility of their content with fundamental rights. These issues are now due to be reviewed following the entry into force of the Lisbon… Read more