Crime can be seen as an act of defiance against the rule of law, particularly if is committed with intent. This intension is often to make unlawful gains, whether by theft, corruption or taking part in illegal markets, which in Europe are most often cross-border in nature. This entails that criminal defiance is not just a national issue: theft or fraud can be committed locally, while handling the illicit proceeds may require a cross-border movement. Obviously not every state faces the same de...

This open access eBook documents an empirical inquiry into the number, value and duration of large commercial court cases in five countries from different parts of Europe: Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, the Netherlands and Norway. It is an exploratory study as for each country data had to be extracted from the case registration systems of the courts. The study shows that a substantial part of economic activity is ‘paralyzed’ by disputes that are fought out in the courts. This has broad negati...

Increasingly, teachers, youth workers, and social workers are being called on to ‘build resilience to radicalisation’. But, what does this actually mean? What is resilience to radicalisation, how can it be built, and whose role is it?

Drawing on an interdisciplinary analysis of policies and the perspectives of practitioners themselves, this book offers a fresh look at these questions. Through unpacking different ways of thinking about resilience to radicalisation, this book aims to bring ...

More than 10.74 million people globally are detained in penal institutions. An estimated 40% to 90% of these detainees suffer from mental illness. This makes the prevalence of mental disorder in detainees extremely high compared with the general population (18% to 29%). As a consequence, defendants and detainees with mental illness are not ‘yet another vulnerable group’ that should be ‘taken into account’ in developing laws and policies On the contrary, they are a dominant force and t...

International crimes cause widespread victimisation and destruction, leading to social disruption that may take generations to repair. Over the years, the international community has established international courts to end the culture of impunity in relation to such crimes and to enforce a culture of accountability. A critical success factor for these courts is to ensure that they are perceived as legitimate in post-conflict societies.

Established after the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi eth...

Addiction is pervasively present within the criminal justice sector, resulting in legal professionals regularly dealing with addicted defendants. Yet addiction is a complex and heterogeneous phenomenon, resulting in controversies regarding its conceptualisation, and thus difficulties in addressing addiction-related crime in court. Over the last decades, addiction has increasingly been conceptualised as a brain disease, which arguably could alter the law’s current approach towards the crimin...

What practical problems are at stake in current EAW surrender proceedings? The research project Improving Mutual Recognition of European Arrest Warrants through Common Practical Guidelines of which the three country reports for Greece, the Netherlands and Poland are now published, is a follow-up of an earlier project that led to the publication of The European Arrest Warrant and In Absentia Judgments, Maastricht Law Series No.12 In AbsentiEAW. This project is broader than in absentia alone an...

The ImprovEAW-project concerns European Arrest Warrant proceedings in seven Member States (Belgium, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, the Netherlands, Poland and Romania). Maastricht Law Series No. 23 contains the country reports for Greece, the Netherlands and Poland. ImprovEAW is a follow up to an earlier project that focused on In Absentia Judgments (Maastricht Law Series No. 12). This book looks at various other aspects of the EAW surrender procedure that are problematic in practice, such as the ...

Law finds its roots in human experience and its expression in language. It cannot be administered, studied or taught without the instrumentality of language. The focus on language enlarges and deepens comparative studies. This volume features a wide array of comparative perspectives encompassing Law and Language, inviting readers to deepen their understanding of their many interactions, casting new lights that benefit jurists and linguists alike. It invites to interdisciplinary collaboration,...

When Christopher Columbus (circa 1451-1506) arrived at the Bahamas in 1492, it could hardly be predicted that this would result in the most dramatic upheaval in the history of the American continent and the nearby islands. The encounter with the new world inaugurated an era of conquest, colonisation, and economic exploitation by European powers that would last for several centuries. Large numbers of Europeans settled in these newly acquired territories, bringing along their own culture and re...