Undercover Policing and Accountability from an International Perspective

The development of common strategies by the Member States of the EU for combating organized crime on an international level calls for international reflection on the use of increasingly popular undercover policing methods. This volume aims to identify common ground between national criminal procedures and law enforcement organizations, and addresses the question of whether some form of legislative harmonization is desirable. Furthermore, the volume deals with adjacent policies within the Third Pillar of the Treaty on European Union, in the context of which guidelines are being developed for a witness protection programme and the interception of telecommunications. A complementary question concerns the accountability of undercover policing activities at the national and international level.
The focus of the volume is on political, organizational and human rights aspects of the evolution of international covert policing. It has a multidisciplinary character as it includes contributions from well-known academics, politicians, lawyers and policy-makers who are actively involved in the reform of criminal justice policies. As the volume places the findings of the Dutch parliamentary inquiry on undercover policing in an international context, much attention is paid to cross-border learning effects and the mutual influences among criminal justice systems.