European Regimes of Crime Control: Objectives, Legal Bases and Accountability
| Published date | 01 September 2000 |
| Author | Christopher Harding |
| DOI | 10.1177/1023263X0000700302 |
| Date | 01 September 2000 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Christopher Harding *
European Regimes
of
Crime Control: Objectives, Legal
Bases and Accountability
An Analysis of Intergovernmental and Supranational Methodology
§1. Introduction
In the opening statement
of
its Action Plan to Combat Organized Crime 1the European
Council argues:
Organized crime is increasingly becoming a threat to society as we know it
and want to preserve it. Criminal behaviour is no longer the domain
of
individuals only, but also of organizations that pervade the various structures
of civil society, and indeed society as a whole. Crime is increasingly
organizing itself across national borders, also taking advantage of the free
movement
of
goods, capital, services and persons. Technological innovations
such as Internet and electronic banking turn out to be extremely convenient
vehicles either for committing crimes or for transferring the resulting profits
into seemingly licit activities. Fraud and corruption take on massive
proportions, defrauding citizens and civic institutions alike.
In comparison, effective means of preventing and repressing these criminal
activities are developing only at a slow pace, almost always one step behind
The image presented by this statement is of a rapidly developing and expanding and
increasingly sophisticated 'European crime space', contrasted with a much less
developed and effective 'European criminal law space'. The discussion in this paper will
*
1.
224
Professor of Law, University of Wales, Aberystwyth (UK).
28 April 1997, [1997] 0.1. C251/1.
7 MJ 3 (2000)
IChristopher Harding
explore further these perceptions and also comment on both the difficulties inherent in
identifying and assessing the nature and extent of this 'crime problem' and the method
and scope of the emerging legal infrastructure of crime control at the European level.
§2. The Phenomenon of International and European-wide Criminal
Activity
Discussion of and official expressions of concern about the problem of 'international'
or 'transnational' criminal activities have been commonplace in the last twenty years or
more. 2It has been argued that rapidly developing technology and communications, the
increasing 'globalization' of trading, leisure and cultural activities, and political change
bringing about in particular a greater mobility of persons have in tum enabled crime to
'travel' and are seen as fostering the development of international criminal networks.
Thus Myers has asserted: 'The post Cold-war world .... has remained myopic in
perceiving the opportunities it has created for transnational crime', Jand (in very
dramatic terms) that organized crime groups 'are here and their corrosive influence on
the body of Western social institutions grows exponentially'. 4On this view,
international organized crime is seen as being inextricably linked with global capitalism,
the expansion and opening up of markets and economic interdependence. The perception
that sovereign state actors can no longer individually and separately manage such a
crime problem has in tum led to a number of initiatives and the construction of policy
at the level of intergovernmental organizations, whether global (for instance, the UN,
the OECD), or regional (for instance, the Council of Europe, the EUlEC).
However, at the outset it is important to note some difficulties in the epistemology of
the subject which in themselves provide significant hurdles in the way of both an
accurate perception of the subject and of effective action, whether it be the working out
of
policy or the implementation of more practical measures of control. These difficulties
relate firstly to actual knowledge and understanding of the phenomenon of 'international
crime'; secondly, to different perceptions and definitions of such criminality for
purposes of taking legal action; and thirdly, to the structural and cultural nature of
organized crime and corruption and the consequent relevance of reactive and repressive
measures of control.
2. See for instance the opening statement of the European Council's ActionPlan to
Combat
Organized
Crime
(1997), [1997] 0.1.
C25111;
J. Benyon,
Police
Co-operation
in
Europe,
(University of
Leicester, 1995), 6-7; Fleur Keyser-Ringnalda, 'European Integration with regard to the Confiscation
of the Proceeds of Crime', 17
European
Law
Review
(1992), 499.
3. Willard H.
Myers,
'The Emerging Threat of Transnational Organized Crime from the East', 24
Crime,
Law
and
Social
Change
(1996), 181 at 183.
4. Ibid., 214.
7 MJ 3 (2000) 225
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