Post-Brexit Crime and Justice Cooperation between the UK and the EU

Post-Brexit Crime and Justice Cooperation between the UK and the EU will be the topic of a virtual panel discussion on October 27th 2021 hosted by Professor Panos Koutrakos in collaboration with the Senior European Experts group.

Facilitated by the development of new technologies in the 1990s, there has since been a noticeable increase in cross-border crime, terrorism and people trafficking.  The EU has developed increasingly sophisticated policy measures in response to the change in the threat level, very often at the urging of the UK.

Though cooperation has been retained in the provisions negotiated as part of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement between the EU and the UK, the UK’s departure from the EU has meant extensive changes in the arrangements for co-operation in the fields of crime, justice and security between the UK and the EU.

The implications of these changes for law enforcement in the UK are important, not least because the UK lost direct access to a number of important EU databases as well as the right to extradite through the fast-track European Extradition Warrant. Furthermore, the UK can no longer rely on EU civil law co-operation in areas such as contract and family law.

Professor Koutrakos believes this raises a number of questions:

Post-Brexit crime and security cooperation raises fundamental questions not only about the relationship between the UK and the EU but also about various policy choices that the British Government is called upon to take in areas of considerable interest. Such cooperation is defined by at least three main characteristics: broad scope (it ranges for the European Arrest Warrant to measures aiming to combat terrorism and cross-border crime and to data protection), evolving nature (Part Three of the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement by no means deals with these matters exhaustively), and considerable complexity.

The issues around Post-Brexit crime and security cooperation will be debated by an expert panel chaired by Lord David Hannay (former UK Permanent Representative to the EU and former Ambassador to the UN and a member of the House of Lords European Affairs Committee). The speakers are: Lord Peter Ricketts (former UK National Security Adviser and member of the House of Lords); Professor Elspeth Guild (Jean Monnet Professor of Law at Queen Mary University of London and legal counsel to the immigration team at Kingsley Napsley); Sir Julian King (former UK Ambassador to France and to Ireland and EU Commissioner for the Security Union, 2016-19).

For further information and free registration, please visit this weblink.