Les 1: Introduction to European JHA
integration
JHA policy areas:
Typically domains: Asylum, migration, border-crossing, third country nationals,...
Judicial cooperation in civil matters
Criminal law
- Substantive criminal law: when we speak of offenses, what behavior should be
criminalized and how it should be punished. Criminalisation and sanctions.
- Procedural criminal law: how the game is being played or expected to be played,
who are the players, who are the authorities? What is the procedure?
- International co-operation in criminal matters
- judicial co-operation
- Police and Customs cooperation: Very late
⇒ The EU will only get competences over these 2 domains very late.
- Substantive criminal law: In Amsterdam treaty, 1999
- Procedural criminal law: In Lisbon Procedure
Principal JHA Cooperation levels
Levels
1) Council of Europe: Created after WW2
- Established 1949
- Then a smaller group of countries, the reason for establishment was to try
and establish a United States of Europe. (That what was Winston Churchill
had called for after WW2)
- European Convention on Human Rights 1950
- Core council of Europe treaty
- Constitutional text of democracy and human rights in Europe
- With Straatsburg court
→ individuals can challenge issues, if they feel that some Council of
Europe member states have a lack of compliance with fundamental
rights.
- manditorial for Council of Europe members to ratify this convention!
- 200 Council of europe conventions
, - Many feature protocols that have been drafted over time
- TODAY: Big intergovernmental organization, 47 countries
- Several of treaties that have been concluded are also open to Non-council of
europe states.
→ Ex: Australia, Japan, Israel, US,...
- Intergovernmental organization
- Only intergovernmental: all governments and states are equal and
they decide themselves
- They choose what they commit to and what they not commit to
- There is no power at the top (= supranational)
- Reason why there was quite immediately another movement to
establish to European Community, which was supranational
- Produces other instruments (legal instruments)
- Conventions, resolutions, recommendations
- Conventions: seemingly strong, still weaknesses
→ What? An instrument which is first negotiated. Negotiations happen
behalve of the governments by negotiators.
→ If they are happy with the result of the negotiations, they open the
convention for ratification.
→ Means nothing: they just agreed on the text, but they did not ratify
→ Ratification: executive power ratifies.
→ BUT: before being able to ratifie: you need to consult your
population fist. Usually through your parliamentary system.
3 steps
1) Establish your text and sign it
2) Consult your population (usually parliamentary level)
3) Commit your country, text becomes binding within your
country.
- Started to look at judicial cooperation in criminal matters
→ Mother conventions: everything we do today in a European context, when
it comes to co-operation between judicial authorities, finds its basis in the
mother conventions of the council of Europe.
→ Judicial cooperation in criminal matters? = Cooperation between judicial
authorities. When you want to extradite people between countries, when you
want an investigation abroad for your case,...
2) EC - EU institutional framework
- European Community: Treaties Established the European Union:
,- 1951: European Coal and Steel Community
→ To bind Italy and Germany
→ Transferring power over these industries to an international level. To avoid
a WW3.
- 1957: European Atomic Energy Community
- 1957: European Economic Community (TEC)
→ Realization of an internal market
- 1984: European Single act: Free movement of goods, capital, services
and people (Part of european economic community treaty)
→ Inserting the key notion of a European Market
→ Essentially: realization of an internal market. Definition: “area
without internal borders, free movements of goods, capital, services
and persons”
→ Free movement of persons triggers a lot in the minds of European
politicians.
, Les 2: Schengen
Schengen 1
1985: Initial agreement:
- 1984: Bilateral agreement France and Germany: aiming to doing away the physical
controls of the internal border of the 2 countries. (Saarbrucken agreement)
⇒ Both allowed the free movements of goods
- Why? Before this: long waiting lines at the internal borders between France and
Germany. The truckers still needed to go through a personal control at the border,
because with the Saarbrucken agreement, there was no free movement of people.
- Free movement of persons meant: As a citizen of the EU Economic community, ou
are entitled to freely move into another country, meaning you will not be stopped. You
have the right to go into another country. But you have to show at the border that you
are a European citizen. (Free did not mean that there was no control, they have to
controle if you can enjoy the right of free movement.)
⇒ There were still personal controls at the internal border.
- France and Germany decided to take a step ahead: Took a bilateral agreement. We
will gradually start to abolish the control of persons at the internal border.
⇒ 1985 (Became a part of the Saarbrucken agreement)
→ BE, NL, LUX, joined this agreement
= Initial agreement (= free movement of persons without border controls)
- BUT: requires a lot of other things. We need an implementing convention. →
Schengen
⇒ Staarbrucken agreement → Became the Schengen Implementation Convention
1990 Schengen Implementation Convention (SIC)
- Why is an external border needed? Imagine that you do not have border control,
what are you then missing at the border that you were able to do before?
- Ex: people suspected of crime, you could arrest them at the border, by issuing
an alert at your border. This possibility would disappear if there was border no
control.
→ So you would want the other states, to work with your alerts. You want to
have control at the border of the Shengen, and those other countries have to
know which people you are looking for!
→ The only place where you could exercise border controls is at the external
border of Schengen.