Charles D. Raab

International co-operation in criminal law enforcement has become a centrally important policy issue for Europe in the 1990s. In criminal matters, when a decision is taken to go beyond the discretionary exchange of information towards institutionalized police co-operation, a whole Pandora's box of issues and problems is opened. This book, based on interviews in a wide variety of documentary sources, examines the progress of this co-operation. The authors cover all the major and theoretical issues associated with the emerging pattern of co-operation, including the harmonization of criminal law and criminal procedure, law enforcement strategies, police organization and discipline, and the politics of immigration and civil liberties. In a European Union without internal border controls there is widespread agreement on the objective of closer police co-operation. But prospects in some areas are not good and there are potential pitfalls, even dangers, along the road to more integrated arrangements. The authors conclude by making recommendations that proper accountability arrangements are a prerequisite of a balanced and efficient system of European police co-operation.

This book was published in 2003. This book offers a broad and incisive analysis of the governance of privacy protection with regard to personal information in contemporary advanced industrial states. Based on research across many countries, it discusses the goals of privacy protection policy and the changing discourse surrounding the privacy issue, concerning risk, trust and social values. It analyzes at length the contemporary policy instruments that together comprise the inventory of possible solutions to the problem of privacy protection. It argues that privacy protection depends upon an integration of these instruments, but that any country's efforts are inescapably linked with the actions of others that operate outside its borders. The book concludes that, in a ’globalizing’ world, this regulatory interdependence could lead either to a search for the highest possible standard of privacy protection, or to competitive deregulation, or to a more complex outcome reflecting the nature of the issue and its policy responses.

This book offers a broad and incisive analysis of the governance of privacy protection with regard to personal information in contemporary advanced industrial states. Based on research across many countries, it discusses the goals of privacy protection policy and the changing discourse surrounding the privacy issue, concerning risk, trust and social values. It analyzes at length the contemporary policy instruments that together comprise the inventory of possible solutions to the problem of privacy protection. It argues that privacy protection depends upon an integration of these instruments, but that any country's efforts are inescapably linked with the actions of others that operate outside its borders. The book concludes that, in a ’globalizing’ world, this regulatory interdependence could lead either to a search for the highest possible standard of privacy protection, or to competitive deregulation, or to a more complex outcome reflecting the nature of the issue and its policy responses.