The 1995 Convention on the Protection of the Financial Interests of the European Communities (hereafter “PIF Convention”) already acknowledged “that businesses play an important role in the areas financed by the European Communities and that those with decision-making powers in business should not escape criminal responsibility in appropriate circumstances.”1 The PIF Convention, therefore, stipulated in Art. 3 a provision on the criminal liability of heads of business.2 Later, the Second Protocol to the PIF Convention extended criminal liability to legal persons.3 From then on, in the EU’s criminal policy, individual criminal liability of senior corporate officials for severe failures of... Read more

The Evolving Nature of Financial Regulation Until the early 1970s, the various national systems of banking regulation had largely monetary objectives. Controls on commercial banking activity (including administratively set interest rates, quantitative limits on credit expansion, and reserve requirements) were imposed for the purpose of preventing the over- or under-expansion of the money and bank credit supply. In addition, in many countries, including the UK and France, the state sought to direct the flow of available credit towards certain economic areas and activities, and away from others. Another policy concern related to the conditions of competition within the banking industry;... Read more

In most publications that deal with the Banking Union, the global financial crisis of 2008 is mentioned in the introductory paragraph. It is also the unavoidable starting point of this contribution, as it is the collapse of the banking sector that has shown the necessity to rethink the mechanism of banking supervision. Economic growth and financial stability have been seriously damaged by the global crisis that has plagued the world since 2007. The financial and banking crisis shed some light on the need for stronger and more efficient supervision but also on the need for a more effective system of... Read more

The trafficking of human organs (THO) has gone from being an urban legend for many countries to becoming a dark reality that can end in a custodial sentence. Understood as an international problem that demands a response from governments, legislative institutions, and international organizations, it mainly emerges in the context of the inability of countries to cope with the transplantation needs of their patients. The shortage of organs, disparities accentuated by the economic crisis, the vast differences between health systems, and the voracity of unscrupulous traffickers have, in recent years, led to an increase in transplant tourism and the development... Read more

I. Background United Nations Security Council Resolution 2178 (hereinafter “UNSCR 2178”) was adopted by the Security Council acting under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations on 24 September 2014. It aims at stemming the flow of so-called “foreign terrorist fighters” (i.e., individuals who travel to another State than that of their nationality or residence for the purpose of “the perpetration, planning, or preparation of, or participation in, terrorist acts, or the providing or receiving of terrorist training”1) to Syria and Iraq to join “ISIL, ANF and other cells, affiliates, splinter groups or derivatives of Al-Qaida.”2 Given the... Read more