Latest editorials All articles


Articles

Articles found: 294 of 294

Editorial Guest Editorial eucrim 2-2024

21 November 2024 (updated 1 month ago) // english

Dear Readers, Breaches of environmental laws often cause substantial damage to people’s health and the environment. Unlawful pollution, waste dumping and trafficking, violations of wildlife protection, and illegal mining without development permission can have devastating effects. Moreover, environmental offences distort the level playing field for honest businesses and cause both direct and indirect losses to public finances (e.g., higher health expenditure). For the perpetrators, such offences are lucrative and for enforcement authorities not always visible while technically complex, which makes them difficult to investigate. For this reason, environmental transgressions – including environmental crimes – are on the rise. Given their… Read more

Garruto olaf_sw Luigi Igino Garruto / Grassin_olaf_sw Selina Grassin

Fighting Waste Trafficking in the EU: A Stronger Role for the European Anti-Fraud Office
The Reviewed Waste Shipment Regulation and its Enforcement Provisions

11 November 2024 (updated 1 month ago) // english

On 20 May 2024, the new Waste Shipment Regulation (WSR) entered into force. The Regulation aims to better ensure that waste exported outside the EU is properly managed and to modernise shipment procedures to reflect the objectives of a circular economy and climate neutrality.
The new provisions include a mandate to the European Commission to carry out inspections in complex cross-border cases of illegal waste shipments. The Commission will entrust OLAF with implementing these enforcement powers. This will reaffirm and extend the role that the Office and its investigators have been playing in recent years under existing legal frameworks. In the future, OLAF will be able to act on its own initiative, not only in the case of illegal waste shipments entering, transiting or leaving the EU, but also for intra-EU shipments. The new rules will allow for a better fight against waste trafficking, contribute to the protection of the … Read more

Mar Jimeno-Bulnes_sw Prof. Dr. Mar Jimeno Bulnes

The European Public Prosecutor’s Office and Environmental Crime
Further Competence in the Near Future?

10 November 2024 (updated 1 month ago) // english

This article envisages the possible extension of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office’s competences in the field of environmental protection. The author first presents an overview of the Office’s competences under the current legislation and, second, analyses suggestions on extending these competences specifically to the field of environmental crime. The case is made that a stronger, more comprehensive scope of competence for the EPPO would strengthen its position in the EU. This warrants an extension of the Office's jurisdiction to other types of crime, especially in the fight against cross-border crime such as environmental crime.

Read more
Bachmaier_New2 Prof. Dr. Lorena Bachmaier

A Plea for Common Standards on the Lawyer-Client Privilege in EU Cross-Border Criminal Proceedings in Light of Advancing Digitalisation

14 October 2024 // english

While the right to lawyer-client confidentiality has long been recognised as a fundamental right enshrined in the right to legal assistance and the right of defence, its practical implementation does not seem to provide adequate safeguards. Many EU Member States still lack clear rules on how to ensure that privileged communications are not captured during the interception of communications and the search/seizure of computers during criminal investigations. Also, OLAF investigations struggle with deficiencies in safeguarding the lawyer-client privilege. Taking the case law of the European Court of Human Rights as a starting point to identify common standards on the lawyer-client privilege in criminal proceedings, this article argues that there is a need for the European Union to take legislative action to ensure the effective protection of this right.

Read more
Nakane_photo_17092024_sw Dr. Tomohiro Nakane LL.M. (Passau)

Enhancing the Right of Access to a Lawyer for Detained Suspects and Accused Persons via Videoconferencing
The Situation in Germany and Proposals for Improvement

17 September 2024 // english

This article discusses access to a lawyer via videoconferencing for detained suspects and accused persons. In today’s digital age, the introduction of videoconferencing leads to enhance the right of access to a lawyer for suspects and accused persons under Directive 2013/48/EU. The article first provides an overview of the current provisions of the Directive, then analyses the situation in Germany (which has already introduced access to a lawyer by means of videoconference), and lastly shows the benefits of access to a lawyer via videoconference. A revision of Directive 2013/48/EU in order to enshrine this right is proposed in the last section.

Read more

Editorial Guest Editorial eucrim 1-2024

31 July 2024 (updated 2 months ago) // english

Despite countless challenges and obstacles, the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) is working. This is no small feat. By the end of 2023, we had over 1900 active criminal investigations with an overall estimated damage of more than €19 billion. More importantly, in less than three years of operational activity, the EPPO brought to light a whole new continent of crime, as 60% of the estimated damage under our investigation relates to cross-border VAT fraud.

Read more