*** GILLES DE KERCHOVE, ANNE WEYEMBERGH (Edited by): Towards a European Judicial Criminal Area, Vers un espace judiciaire pénal européen. University of Brussels publications (26 av. Paul Héger, B-1000 Brussels. E-mail: Editions@ulb.ac.be - Internet: http: //http://www.ulb.ac.be/ulb/editions ). 2000, 373 pages. ISBN 2-8004-1248-8.
This book is of good stock and full of good omens that have taken the form of a colloquium organised in December 1999 by the Institute for European Studies at the Free University of Brussels in collaboration with the EU Council Secretariat General and the Royal Institute for International Relations. Good omens? They have as name Elisabeth Guigou who signs the preface, Marc Verwilghen who introduces the work and António Vitorino who punctuates it with a post face. And the subject of which it deals - with exhaustiveness doubled by an impressive limpidity - is of importance: The Holder of the Seals of the time, a thousand times correct, when she writes that the success of the European building site open in the field of Justice and Home Affairs will go so far as to condition "the accession of the European citizen to a Europe that is more attentive towards their daily lives", while its failure or its semi-success, both in terms of freedom, security and justice, would have negative consequences".
Thus is effectively the true stake - and fundamental one - of the establishment, within the Union of a credible judicial area. The Belgian Justice Minister does not deny, him who writes: "It is necessary that the European Union becomes a true justice area, that is to say that the European citizen has the same feeling of justice, wherever he may be on the Union territory, be he a victim of an infringement, author or simply witness. This must be a right for a European citizens, and a duty for every European government". This statement is, in itself, revealing of the rise in awareness tat has arisen at the level of Member States: judicial cooperation based upon mutual defiance does not suffice. This rise in awareness is "in rupture with the previous intergovernmental enterprises for the creation of a European judicial area in penal matters". Director f the Council Secretariat General and invited lecturer at the Faculty of Law at the Catholic University of Louvain, he illustrates this assertion with the help of six examples. Firstly, the introduction of the notion of an area that "is to the territory (…) what the notion of citizenship (…) is to the concept of nationality" and which "leads to fundamentally review the classical approach that we have towards sovereignty". Then, the corners such as the Amsterdam Treaty "buried in pragmatism of territoriality that characterise until now the enforcement of penal law and the conduct of repressive action", then the integration of Schengen into the EU, the progress in terms of control by the Court of Justice, the series of institutional reforms that this Treaty brings in terms of the functioning of intergovernmental cooperation by introducing "certain recipes from the Community method" (without neglecting certain failings, the author cites in particular, the introduction of the framework decision, the fact that the conventions can now enter into force as soon as they are ratified by at least half of the Member States and the general right to initiative finally recognised for the Commission, without including the association of the European Parliament and the handing over to the Community budget of the operational expenses in these matters) and, finally the external dimension that is conferred to the Freedoms, Security and Justice Area (Gilles de Kerchove noted that Javier Solana is not only, "Mr CFSP", but also Mr JHA").
After having described this turning made in the heads, Gilles de Kerchove reviews the "political promises" that have been made by the EU 15 during the European Council in Tampere, Summit during which "the virtualities of Amsterdam have been confirmed or even amplified", especially through the principal of mutual recognition, the suppression of extradition and the creation of Eurojust. So many dossiers- and many others still - that are studied in greater depth in this coherent and vital collective work for all those who would like to understand the stakes of this determining turning of the European building process. Michel Theys
*** MONICA DEN BOER (Edited by): Schengen Still Going Strong. Evaluation and Update. European Institute for Public Administration (P.O. Box 1229, NL-6201 BE Maastricht. Tel: (31-43) 3296274 - Fax: 3296296 - E-mail: m.simons@eipa-nl.com - Internet: http: //http://www.eipa.nl ). 2000, 135 pages, NGL 65, EUR 27.22. ISBN 90-6779-146-6.
This work brings together the acts of the seventh colloquium organised by the IEAP on the Schengen agreements. Noticeably, it is the integration of the Schengen acquis into the Amsterdam Treaty and the development of a European security area that have been studied in most detail on this occasion. Through contributions that are published in their language of origin (German, English or French), even specialists broach themes such as the challenge of a double EU-Schengen Presidency, the legal and institutional incorporation of Schengen into the Union, the impact of Schengen on cooperation in the field of JHA, the position of associate countries and the Northern Union, the bilateral and multilateral initiatives, mutual legal assistance, the role of Europol in the monitoring of illegal immigration networks, cross-border police cooperation, the situation of the external borders in Mitteleuropa, finally the control exerted by the European Parliament and national parliaments. (MT)
*** FABIEN JOBARD: Drogue et délinquance: quelles politiques publiques souhaitables? European University Institute (Convento, 9 via dei Roccettini, I-50016 San Domenico di Fiesole, Italy. Fax: (39-055) 4685770 - E-mail: divry@iue.it). "Policy Papers" collection, N° 99/5. 1999, 55 pages.
Researcher at the Marc Bloch Centre in Berlin as well as at the International Relations Research Centre in Paris, Fabien Jobard studies, in this policy paper, the problems raised by the fight lead against drug related delinquency. His scale is that of the Union: starting with the experiences carried out at the local level in various countries or jointly by several of them, the author casts light on the policies and instruments that seem most pertinent to him. He also discusses the behavioural logic of drug users and the most effective life jackets that can be thrown to them by the public authorities. A serious work and filled with nuances that leads Fabien Jobard to underline the need to rethink, in terms of drugs, the "mechanical and ineffective sharing between repression and prevention". In his conclusion, he calls for a "stifling of passions around the issue of drugs" and for a deployment of energies "from the field of moral philosophy". In his eyes, "it is only at this price that the policy will find, against the preachers of laisser faire and the police desires, the autonomy in decision-making which guarantees its legitimacy. (MT)
*** Protéger le citoyen contre le crime international. Notre Europe (44 rue Notre-Dame des Victoires, F-75002 Paris. Tel: (33-1) 53009440 - Fax: 53009444 - E-mail: notreeurope@notre-europe.asso.fr - Internet: http: //http://www.notre-europe.asso.fr ). 2000, 75 pages.
The European steering committee of Notre Europe, the study and research grouping dear to Jacques Delores, studied the way in which could be conceived the European tool in the fight against international crime. It is that, as writes the former European Commission President in his introduction, the European area without internal borders "would not be conceivable if the authorisation of an increased latitude to criminal activities and if it does not accompany serious guarantees for people as to their protection against these activities". Conferring to the judge the front line role on the European scene is necessary in this context. Though, as is noted by Jacques Delores, the fact that it is independent and banned from referring to it, for its inclusion in the European provision, both for intergovernmental practices as for the classic Community method. The experts contacted by Notre Europe put forward, in this publication, a prudent and pragmatic approach: rather than initially conceiving an international system of justice and investigation that would not be linked to the national systems, they invite the practitioners to work together and to create the confidence that will then enable them to propose the developments necessary of the system. In a concrete manner, they call for firstly that Europol be transformed into a body susceptible of intervening in an operational manner in the leading of investigations involving cooperation between several Member States, with the exclusion on any other unit. Then they call in favour of the rapid creation of the European judicial cooperation unit Eurojust as well as the establishment without delay on a provisional legal coordination unit. On this last point, the EU 15 heard them at the end of last year. (MT)
*** Archives de politique criminelle. Hommage au bâtonnier Philippe Lafarge. Editions A. Pedone (13 rue Soufflot, F-75005 Paris. Tel: (33-1) 43540597 - Fax: 46340760). "Archives de politique criminelle" collection, N° 22. 2000, 240 pages, FF 240. ISBN 2-233-00369-1.
This mix in the honour of a great French lawyer recently deceased carry a misleading title. The "criminal policy" is to understand, in this case, in this widest meaning since the first contribution for the title "A right to work rebuilt". Professor Georges Levasseur explains in a very convincing manner that today we live in an "economic and social revolution of a scope that exceeds that which started in England at the end of the 18th Century" and the French public powers (but not only them…) rediscovered, with the social fracture, a "comparable solution to that of 1848, were it is not a question of fighting against the pauperism and of creating national workshops to reabsorb unemployment". He recalls that the right to work "is born from the major concern of health, interests and the dignity of workers, threatened by the development of unstoppable liberalism, is blinded by the sole desire for profit". From where the imperative need, in his eyes, to rethink the right to work in order for it to conserve its effectiveness in a new world that calls for a new balance between "the evolution (or from scientific, political transformations, or even the living conditions, individual or collective), on the one hand, and the safeguarding of the fundamental rights of the person".
This theme is broached in its European dimension by Prof. Françoise Tulkens, judge at the European Court of Human Rights, who follows the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights compared to the European Human Rights Convention if it is a simple "solemn declaration", but which confers in it a legally binding nature possibly leading to a problem of coherence between the two systems. In this case, it would be appropriate to institute mechanisms for the coordination or interaction between these two legal instruments, namely a reference to the Convention. In the eyes of Françoise Tulken, this accession is possible and would present a two fold advantage: increased coherence between the protection of fundamental human rights in Europe, and especially, the fact that the Court of Justice would be thus controlled, in the same fashion as the supreme and constitutional jurisdictions of States, by a objective and independent third party.
Also to be noted, under the European angle, the contribution by Prof. Mireille Delmas-Marty who sees in the Corpus Juris presented in 1997 by the European Parliament and the Commission to protect the financial interests of the Union a promising beginning of a European penal procedure model. A model that would be, she explains, truly innovative as it would marry the accusatory model with and inquisitor model in which the role of the States is preponderant. (MT)
*** MARIE-THERESE CAUPAIN, GEORGES DE LEVAL (Edited by): L'efficacité de la justice civile en Europe. Larcier (Diffusion: Accès+, 4 Fond Jean-Pâques, B-1348 Louvain-la-Neuve. Tel: (32-10) 482500 - Fax: 482519 - E-mail: acces+cde@deboeck.be). 2000, 480 pages, BEF 3,900, FF 634. ISBN 2-8044-0596-6.
This imposing work is the fruit of an international seminar organised in view of facilitating the recognition and execution of the decisions made in the EU as well as to opening the debate, in partnership with legal professionals, on a common approach including certain aspects of the national procedural laws, this in order for all European citizens to benefit from it - in the equivalent conditions - of a rapid, efficient and cheap access to the judicial institutions. Allying the practical commentary with the theoretical reflection, on the one hand, and the analysis of the present law with future prospects on the implementation procedures (border effect, bank seizures, execution in the field of intellectual property, respect for human rights, statute of execution agents, patrimonial transparency…). (MT)
*** DAVID O'KEEFFE (Edited by): Judicial Review in European Union Law. Volume I. Kluwer Law International (P.O. Box 85889, 2508 CN The Hague). 2000, 674 pages. ISBN 90-411-1372-X.
This liber amicorum is dedicated to a great Anglo-Saxon expert, Lord Slynn of Hadley, who was a judge and lawyer at the Court of Justice. This first volume is a summary of the contribution made by eminent European lawyers. They are centred on European jurisprudence and the issue of the delicate merger of Anglo-Saxon and Roman law. This work for specialists presents the functioning of the Court in Luxembourg and the Court of First Instance, the challenge the enlargement represents for the Court, the protections offered by European law (commercial and individual) as well as the interaction between national and European. (DDF)
*** Transversales Science Culture. Transversales (60646 Chantilly cedex, France. Tel: (33-3) 44625780 - E-mail: transversales@globenet.org - Internet: http: //http://www.globenet.org/transversales/ ). N° 66, December 2000, FF 70.
The central report of this quarterly is dedicated to the "common goods" of humanity that, to be well defended against the desires of a capitalist market economy that is rushing towards becoming global, requires that the tools for global governance be created. Among the contributions, Riccardo Petrella calls for a World Water Authority while Philippe Quéau defends the idea that information and knowledge are world public goods. Also to be noted an article by the French Secretary of State for the Social Economy, Guy Hascoët, who notes that the market economy is incapable of regulating development and calls, for then on, for the implementation - at the national, European and world level of a plural economy. Finally, in an opinion entitles "In the chaos of hell in the market economy", Jacques Robin notes that it is far from the time when Michel Rocard dare to use this formula: "It is in the framework of a democratic society with a market that we must concretise our values. I have just said with market and not of market.
*** EUROPEAN COMMISSION (Office for the official publications of the European Community. Sold in the Representation office of the Commission) has just published the following works:
*** European Economy. European Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs. 2000, N° 70, 398 pages, EUR 40. ISBN 92-828-9708-7.
This think volume reproduces the Broad Guidelines of economic policies for 2000, the relationship of convergence in the same year, the draft decision from the Council for the adoption of the single currency by Greece on 1 January 2001 and statistical annexes.
*** Technical research and development in Europe. 36 examples of projects (III). Directorate General for Research. 2000, 79 pages. ISBN 92-828-9578-5.
This publication describes around thirty research projects developed in the European framework, their stakes and their results. These projects are part of the following fields: agriculture and food (among others the detection of GMO), environment and energy, transports, medicines and health, fundamental sciences, research and society (notably with a project entitles "(Re)thinking flexibility"), information society, industrial processes and international cooperation.
*** D épartements. The current magazine of General Councils. Assemblée des Départements de France (6 rue Duguay-trouin, F-75006 Paris. Tel: (33-1) 45496020 - Fax: 45496021 - Internet: http://www.departement.org ). December 2000, N°62, FF 30.
This magazine dedicates its "Events" pages to the first anniversary of the unprecedented storms that, in December 1999, effected two thirds of France, or 6 departments. The "Dossier" is dedicated to the dialogue meshed between social leaders and workers during the first meetings of the departmental social actions. Also to be noted is an article entitles "The Euro, its already tomorrow" that presents the awareness building measures that the French departments intends to undertake over the next twelve months in order to prepare the "fragile public" to the transition to the single currency.
Reviews in short
*** Benelux Newsletter. Brussels, 2000/5. In summary: Interview by Johan Swinnen, Belgian Ambassador to the Netherlands, the Benelux activities underway (Belgian-Dutch conference in Eindhoven, meeting of the ministerial working group for urban development, 14th Benelux working conference dedicated to teaching farms and sustainable development, AMBAO collection mark, etc.). *** La lettre européenne du progress technique. Paris, December 2000. In summary: "Towards the 6th PCRD: the network economy and the production of sustainable knowledge," The SME/SMI measures in the 6th PCRD: collective research", "forward looking institute in Seville: five major challenges for European research", a safer use of the Internet, pilot actions in terms of combined transport, development projects in Poland and Latvia in the framework of International cooperation, results of the assessment process of 13 September 2000 with regards to specific measures for SME/SMI. *** Opinion Jeunesse. Brussels, N°12/01, December . 2000-January 2001. In summary: the Euro-Mediterranean civil forum (allocation of duties within the new office), the priorities of the Swedish Presidency, the "plan for Salto" from the European Commission, "Council of Europe: joint council on youth issues", review of youth policies, education in human rights, the information forum on the human rights of girls and young women, training programme in the Ukraine, the OSCE supports the youth calendar.