Transferability of police cooperation strategies:

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• Transferability of police cooperation strategies
• The case of European Union
• Joint Investigation Teams

Ludo Block Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The
Netherlands
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OUTLINE

• Introduction
• Cross-border criminal investigations in the EU
• Origin and emergence of the JIT concept
• Practical experience with JITs up to date
• Conclusion.

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INTRODUCTION

• Do EU Council legal instruments aimed at
  enhancing police cooperation have an impact
  practices of police cooperation and if so, why?
• Research sample consists of 70 instruments
• Analysis of EU Council policy-making related to
  the instruments
• Assessment of the impact of these instruments on
  police cooperation practices
• Selected case studies for in-depth analysis.

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INTRODUCTION

• Joint Investigation Teams (JIT) are a new
  strategy for cross-border cooperation in criminal
  investigations
• Traditional MLA was considered as insufficient
  and outdated and there were high expectations of
  JITs
• Introduced in the MLA Convention and subsequently
  in a Framework Decision on JITs
• Legal basis for JITs since 2004 available
• Despite the political ambition a negligible
  number of JITs has been established so far
• What causes this gap?

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CROSS-BORDER CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIONS IN THE EU

• The context of cross-border criminal
  investigations in the
• EU is complex as result of
• varying rules of evidence
• different approaches to covert investigative
  techniques
• diverging disclosure regimes
• fragmentation of law enforcement efforts
• law enforcement agencies that have to prioritise
  capacity and are governed by performance targets
• different languages and diverging (police)
  cultures.

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CROSS-BORDER CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIONS IN THE EU

• Over the years (more or less) workable solutions
  to address the obstacles have been established
• The traditional strategy in cross-border
  investigations of serious and organised crime
  parallel investigations
• The JIT concept introduces innovative features
• - multidisciplinary
• - information and evidence can be shared
  directly
• - seconded members can be entrusted to assist in
  or undertake investigative measures themselves
• - request from a JIT to participating states
  should be considered as national requests.

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EMERGENCE OF THE JIT CONCEPT IN EU POLICY-MAKING

• 1994 Concept joint investigation team
  introduced in the drafting of a new customs
  convention
• 1995 Concept joint investigation team
  introduced in the drafting of the MLA
  Convention
• 1997 Treaty of Amsterdam, Action plan on
  Organised Crime
• 1998 Vienna Action Plan
• 1999 Tampere European Council Conclusions
• First tangible text on JITs in draft MLA
  Convention
• 2000 MLA Convention agreed
• 2001 9/11 prompts a strong call for joint
  investigation teams
• 2002 Framework Decision on JITs adopted
• 2004 First JIT between France and Spain
• 2009 28 JITs established, continuing efforts to
  promote JITs.

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EMERGENCE OF the JIT CONCEPT IN EU POLICY-MAKING

• Analysis of the policy-making reveals that
• The note that introduced the idea for JITs does
  not explain the concept, background or
  practicalities of joint teams
• Subsequent discussions contain no residue of any
  consideration on the practicalities of JITs from
  a professional perspective
• All first notes and tangible drafts of JIT
  provisions submitted by Germany.

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ORIGIN OF JIT CONCEPT

• German domestic practices with joint teams
• In 1970 first Gemeinsame Ermittlungsgruppe
  established in Hamburg between police and
  customs
• Concept of joint teams aims at inter-institutional
  cooperation where overlapping competencies
  exist
• In 1990 joint teams were included in national
  policy for combating drug trafficking
• Nowadays Gemeinsame Ermittlungsgruppen are
  established for combating various forms of serous
  and organised crime.

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PRACTICAL EXPERIENCE WITH JITS

• Member States have diverging approaches towards
  JITs
• More than one-third of JITs established between
  France and Spain, their pragmatic approach
  mirrors parallel investigations
• All established JITs are bilateral while the
  added value was foreseen particularly for
  multilateral investigations
• Obstacles to JITs similar as those to parallel
  investigations.

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ADRESSING THE OBSTACLES?
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CONCLUSION

• The JIT concept can work, however
• - under favourable circumstances
• - as yet it has not shown an obvious added value
  over
• parallel investigations
• Good policy-making on police cooperation needs
  to take the professional rationality into
  account legal and political considerations alone
  are insufficient.

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END