Security cooperation, counterterrorism, and EU–North Africa cross-border security relations, a legal perspective

Abstract

The EU is clearly in the process of developing an external dimension to the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (AFSJ). This paper focuses on ex. Police and Judicial Cooperation in Criminal Matters (PJCCM) provisions. These developments pose specific legal basis issues for the EU, given its complex EU–member state legal relationship, and the inter-institutional balance, all reflected in the treaty framework post-Lisbon. New Court of Justice rulings are now emerging which will assist in this issue. Equally the approach to be taken in developing these relationships will be crucial. This paper proposes the adoption of an Onuf style constructivism in order to best capture the reality of the process that is developing, and has developed for the ex. PJCCM measures internally. This then needs to be allied with a constitutionalism model to ensure a balanced development of all three aspects of the AFSJ.

Keywords:

• AFSJ
• North Africa
• competence
• constructivism
• constitutionalism

Notes on contributor

Maria O'Neill is a Senior Lecturer in Law at the University of Abertay Dundee. This article was initiated via a workshop entitled Uncertainty at the EU's southern borders: Actors, policies, and legal frameworks, held at the European University Institute Florence.

Notes

1. EU–Russia relations are mediated through the four Common Spaces programme, agreed at the St Petersburg Summit in May 2003. Two of those spaces are relevant to the subject matter of this paper, the common space of freedom, security and justice and the space of cooperation in the field of external security.

2. Documents for which are available on the UNDOC website, under legal tools – international cooperation networks.

3. The beneficiaries of Euro-Med Police III are the People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria, the Arab Republic of Egypt, Israel, the Kingdom of Jordan, Lebanon (suspended, the Syrian Arab Republic), the Kingdom of Morocco, the Palestinian Authority, and the Republic of Tunisia.

4. Chemical, Biological, Nuclear, and Radiological attack.

5. Whose membership comprises Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Hungary, FRY Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, and Turkey.

6. Whose membership comprises Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Russian Federation, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.

7. For a further discussion on the SELEC and CARICC and their relationships with the EU, see O’Neill (2013).

Additional information

Funding

This was part of the European Research Council funded BORDERLANDS project.