The ongoing spread of social networking pages such as Facebook and Google+ recently sparked the interest of German security agencies. In a statement of 14 July 2011, the federal government acknowledged the relevance and conduct of criminal investigations on social networking pages. The government takes the view that the pseudonymous participation does in general not require a specific legal basis since there is no legitimate expectation of privacy on websites which do not require a verification of identity by registration. This view is partly shared in legal writing and refers to a relatively vague section in a recent judgment of the federal constitutional court. The article analyses that argument and reveals that it is too undifferentiated for a transfer to social networks and thus not in accordance with the constitutional requirements in Germany.

The first Association was formally constituted in Rome in October 1990. Today, there are 32 associations altogether, representing all the Member States (except Cyprus), plus Croatia, San Marino, Switzerland, and Turkey. AGON, the bulletin of the Associations, was first published in April 1993. It was replaced by eucrim in 2006. The Associations meanwhile function as a network and serve as a forum in the field of European criminal law and the protection of the financial interests of the European Union. They are made up of representatives from the legal and judicial professions (academics and practitioners) as well as other law… Read more

The article examines the investigative role of the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) and the procedural rights implications arising from its anti-fraud activities.

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