Book Review: The Future of EU Criminal Justice Policy and Practice: Legal and Criminological Perspectives
| Author | Ermioni Xanthopoulou |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/20322844211064385 |
| Published date | 01 September 2022 |
| Date | 01 September 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
claim about a specific area of EU policymaking which might be fruitfully compared and contrasted
with legitimacy issues that arise –and are at the centre of vibrant literature –in other fields.
In the context of the European Union, which acquired competence to intervene in criminal
matters (by setting standards for the harmonisation of Member States’national law) only since the
Treaty of Maastricht, the questions acquire special importance for EU lawyers as they are in-
extricably linked to a question of competence (and what in the EU is not inextricably linked to the
perennial question of the precise delimitation of competences, after all?). Absent the conditions (the
necessity, the rationale) for EU intervention in criminal law in a certain field or circumstance, one
could argue, EU competence should not exist. Wieczorek’s analysis in this respect is useful, as it
provides theoretical –and original –arguments for the conditions of the exercise of such com-
petence. Even though the book is not only, or not even primarily about this, the competence-related
viewpoint make the book a useful read from a methodological perspective, for those interested in the
actual exercise of the politically charged competences acquired by the EU in the 90s. One could
conceive similar books for those other areas, that is accounts systematising the normative legit-
imacy, the rationale for EU action in the Area of Freedom Security and Justice more broadly, in
Economic and Monetary Union, or in Common Foreign and Security policy –and then assess the
practice of EU institutions against that benchmark.
The Future of EU Criminal Justice Policy and Practice: Legal and Criminological Perspectives, Jannemieke Ouwerkerk,
Judit Altena, Jacob ¨
Oberg and Samuli Miettinen (eds.) (Leiden: Brill, 2019), ISBN 9789004367371, 380 pp., €165
Reviewed by: Ermioni Xanthopoulou, Brunel University London, UK
DOI: 10.1177/20322844211064385
Criminalisation and criminal justice are no longer merely tied to the nation state despite their
traditional link to statehood and the national public order. Cross-border and cyber-crime call for
discussions and initiatives beyond the nation state level. This is why the European Union’s(EU’s)
Area of Freedom Security and Justice is a fast-evolving policy area. Defining criminal offences
pertaining to crimes with a cross-border element, such as organised crime, has not escaped the remit
of EU law which has also facilitated judicial and police cooperation in the fields of criminal justice.
At the same time, legal perspectives on criminalisation and criminal justice may no longer be
enough to give comprehensive answers to complex questions pertaining to law and society.
The inability of law alone to tackle such multi-faceted questions highlights the significance of
this volume that has brought together several contributions examining the link between poli cy and
practice, the role of evidence in criminalisation and the use of sociological methods to approach
legal questions. For reasons of legitimacy as well as compliance with constitutional principles, law-
making at the EU criminal level must be informed by criminological evidence.
The book, The Future of EU Criminal Justice Policy and Practice: Legal and Criminological
Perspectives, is composed of three parts and despite the different thematic patterns among chapters,
the reader can enjoy navigating through a coherent narrative. The first part discusses whether or not
to criminalise a conduct in EU law by exploring legal and criminological questions. Departing from
normative justifications that usually underpin criminalisation, Persak examines their specific
function in EU criminal law when EU legislative bodies exercise their competence under Article 83
380 New Journal of European Criminal Law 13(3)
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