Just a few months after the entry into force of the EU Framework Decision on the fight against organized crime, this book provides an unprecedented analysis of the national and European legislation on organized crime. The book provides a critical examination of the European policies and legal instruments to promote the harmonization and approximation of criminal law in this field (including the United Nations Convention on Transnational Organized Crime). The current level of harmonization among EU Member States and the approximation to the standards of the new Framework Decision are discussed in detail, with the help of tables, graphs and maps. The results highlight the problems surrounding the international legal instruments and the inconsistencies of the national approaches to combating organized crime.

This volume represents the first attempt to systematically compare organised crime concepts, as well as historical and contemporary patterns and control policies in thirteen European countries. These include seven ‘old’ EU Member States, two ‘new’ members, a candidate country, and three non-EU countries. Based on a standardised research protocol, thirty-three experts from different legal and social disciplines provide insight through detailed country reports. On this basis, the editors compare organised crime patterns and policies in Europe and assess EU initiatives against organised crime.

The definition of organised crime has long been the object of lively debate, at national and international level. Sociological and legal analysis has not yet led to one definitive answer to the question of what exactly 'organised crime' means. Nonetheless, many instruments adopted both at international and national levels set forth special legal regimes designed to target criminal groups featuring a stable organisation, which are perceived as particularly dangerous to society. Therefore, identifying the notion of organised crime is crucial to establishing the scope of any legal instrument specifically designed for combating it. The aim of this book is to reassess the scope, the effectiveness and the overall coherence of existing definitions of organised crime, and to identify any need for a reconsideration of these definitions, specifically with reference to the EU legal order. It will be of interest to academics, practitioners and legislators working in the sphere of EU criminal law and of organised crime more generally.

Recent years have been characterised by growing awareness among European member states about serious shortcomings to the way organised crime is measured and assessed. Currently, organised crime reports primarily generate descriptive analyses of a past situation based on law enforcement data and do not always provide the necessary information for proactive and preventive policy strategies. Therefore an EU Action Plan has been issued to develop a more future oriented and risk based methodology for the measurement of organised crime and to convert the traditional organised crime situation reports into strategic reports for planning purposes. This book is the outcome of two studies undertaken by a team composed of Belgian, Italian and Swedish researchers for the European Commission. It presents an overview of current practices in the measurement of organised crime in Europe and includes a discussion about the concept and the assessment of the impact of the phenomenon. Further the feasibility of the implementation of the existing EU Action Plan was studied and evaluated. As a result of applied research Measuring Organised Crime in Europe provides an in depth and comparative analysis of current practice in drafting organised crime reports across and by the EU and offers new ideas to improve their quality.

This pocket book is comprised of the principal policy documents and multilateral legal instruments on international and European criminal law, with a special focus on Europol and Eurojust, as well as on initiatives aimed at combating international crime, organized crime, or terrorism. The sixth revised edition provides professors, students, judicial and law enforcement authorities, lawyers, and researchers with an accurate, up-to-date and low budget edition of essential texts on these matters. These texts have been ordered according to the multilateral cooperation level within which they were drawn up - either Pr�m, the European Union (comprising also Schengen-related texts), the Council of Europe, or the United Nations. Within each of these four parts, they have been included in chronological order. The book comprises 34 newly added texts, including a series of newly adopted framework decisions, the new legal framework for Eurojust and Europol, the new EU Treaties, and the Stockholm Programme. Instruments amending others have been implemented for coherence and maintaining the spirit of the amendments in spite of small technical errors in the amending instruments. The amendments included in the Council Framework Decision of 26 February 2009, on trials in absentia, have been implemented in the framework decisions concerned with an indication in a footnote as to the application date. Exceptionally, both the Convention of 26 July 1995 on the use of information technology for customs purposes (and the 2003 Protocol thereto) and the Council Decision of 30 November 2009 on the use of information technology for customs purposes have been included, because the latter will replace the current Convention and its Protocol as of 27 May 2011.

In Corruption and Organised Crime in Europe, Gounev and Ruggiero present a discussion of the relation between organized criminals and corruption in the EU’s 27 Member States. The book draws on research and scholarly work the editors carried out, respectively, within the Center for the Study of Democracy (CSD) in Bulgaria, and within academic institutions, as well as on behalf of the European Commission and the United Nations. Combining empirical data and theoretical debates, the book focuses on three main areas of the relationship between corruption and organised crime: public bodies, the private sector and criminal markets. It presents the findings of a recent research project carried out by the CSD on behalf of the European Commission, providing an analysis of the specific national contexts in which corruption and organized crime thrive. The essays also address institutional responses and policies, focusing particularly on how EU Member States attempt to sever the links between the official economy, the political sphere and organized crime. The second part of the book presents case studies, written by some of the foremost international experts on the subject matter, analysing corrupt exchange and criminal organisations, concentrating on specific European countries – Bulgaria, France, Greece, Italy, Russia, Spain and the UK. As the first comprehensive study of corruption and organised crime in the countries of the European Union, the book will be a valuable resource for students and scholars of criminology, sociology, law and international politics, as well policy makers and law-enforcement agencies.

Despite of the United Nations (UN) efforts to encourage the fight against transnational organized crime (TOC) , the most effective model of cooperation nowadays comes from the European Union (EU). Aware of the threat represented by the TOC, the EU developed, in 1999, a “comprehensive strategy on tackling TOC” . Through this innovative approach, audacious and dynamic tools were built, both in theory as in practice. Having established the “principle of mutual recognition of judicial decisions” as the cornerstone of cooperation, the EU created the European Arrest Warrant, which was responsible for breaching all parameters of cooperation then known. A solid operational structure also contributed to enhance cooperation, through the enlargement of the Europol’s mandate and establishment of new bodies to foment judicial cooperation . Considering the latest EU’s legal improvements in the field, the South American region could possibly benefit from the implementation of the “principle of mutual recognition”, in terms of an arrest warrant. With regard to the operative structure, the establishment of a police force, in the model of Europol, could possibly profit the researched region. Initia Via Editora