Challenge Publications

This section's articles

• The Changing Dynamics of Security in an Enlarged European Union

  27 October 2008, by Balzacq Thierry, Carrera Sergio , Guild Elspeth
  The relation between liberty and security has been highly contestable over the past 10 years in the EU integration process. With the expansion of the EU’s powers into domains falling within the scope of the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice, liberty and its relation to security has brought a new range of issues, struggles and debates. Acts of political violence labelled as ‘terrorism’ and human mobility at the European and international levels have justified the construction of these phenomena as threats to the security and safety of the nation state. They have legitimised the development of normative responses that go beyond traditional configurations and raise fundamental dilemmas for the security and liberty of the individual.

• Reinforcing the Surveillance of EU Borders: The Future Development of FRONTEX and EUROSUR

  26 August 2008, by Jeandesboz Julien
  This paper assesses the implications of the European Commission Communications on the evaluation and future development of FRONTEX (European Agency for the Management of Operational Cooperation at the External Borders of the Member States of the European Union) and the establishment of EUROSUR (European border surveillance system). It emphasises that the evaluation of the activities conducted by the EU’s external borders agency over the period 2006–07 fails to address the impact of such undertakings on fundamental rights and freedoms, solely focusing on technical issues and overall efficiency.

• The Institutional Architecture of CFSP after the Lisbon Treaty: Constitutional breakthrough or challenges ahead?

  30 June 2008, by Bopp Franziska, Wessels Wolfgang
  This paper analyses the impact of the Lisbon Treaty on the institutional architecture of CFSP and the overall external action of the Union. The Lisbon Treaty has introduced some remarkable changes which might substantially influence the (inter-)institutional balance in this policy field. The authors offer two different possible readings of the CFSP provisions of the Lisbon Treaty: they could be interpreted as a major step forward in the direction of a strengthened, more coherent and more effective international actor with more supranational elements; but they may also be seen as demonstrating an ever-refined mode of ‘rationalised intergovernmentalism’.

• Security versus Justice? Police and Judicial Cooperation in the European Union

  4 June 2008, by Geyer Florian , Guild Elspeth
  One of the most dynamic areas of recent EU law has been cooperation in the fields of policing and criminal justice. This book enables readers to understand the changes that have taken place by examining how and why they occurred, along with the subsequent outcomes.

• Taking Stock: Databases and Systems of Information Exchange in the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice

  19 May 2008, by Geyer Florian
  Exchange of information in the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice, using new technologies like biometric identifiers and creating large-scale centralised EU databases is a highly topical, yet equally controversial issue. A number of EU databases and systems of information exchange are already in place, others will soon become operational. In spite of this, proposals for new measures and mechanisms are frequently tabled; it appears as if the EU is only at the beginning of a ‘new age of information exchange’.

• The Other Side of Moon - The Schengen Information System and Human Rights: A Task for National Courts

  16 April 2008, by Brouwer Evelien
  The European Commission’s proposals for a European Border Management Strategy are based on an almost blind faith in the use of large-scale databases, identification measures and biometrics for immigration and border control purposes. Yet these measures entail a risk to the protection of not only the right to privacy and the right to data protection, but also to the freedom of movement and the principle of non-discrimination.

• The Abolition of Internal Border Checks in an Enlarged Schengen Area: Freedom of movement or a scattered web of security checks?

  7 April 2008, by Faure Atger Anaïs
  This paper assesses the implications and practicalities stemming from the removal of land and sea internal border controls in an enlarged EU on December 2007. Freedom of movement represents a central feature of the supranational status of EU citizenship. Its practical application to the enlarged EU territory has constituted a necessary step to ensure equality among all European citizens. After providing an account of the processes and logic leading to the removal of checks at common borders, the state of play within the Schengen area is described. Particular attention is paid to the national security strategies carried out by the EU-15 member states currently in place and their consequences on the freedom of movement of individuals and on liberty.

• Security Policies and Human Rights in European Football Stadia

  7 April 2008, by Tsoukala Anastassia
  This paper addresses the issue of the increasing infringement of European football supporters’ civil rights and liberties since the mid-1980s. The analysis of the national and supranational regulation of football hooliganism in the light of the evolution of crime control policies in Europe uncovers that this jeopardising of freedoms, owing to the institutionalisation of the control of deviance and to the blurring of the frontiers between the executive and the legislative powers, is not a side-effect of the counter-hooliganism policies.

• Terror, Insecurity and Liberty : Illiberal Practices of Liberal Regimes after 9/11

  18 March 2008, by Bigo Didier, Tsoukala Anastassia
  This edited volume questions the widespread resort to illiberal security practices by contemporary liberal regimes since 9/11, and argues that counter-terrorism is embedded into the very logic of the fields of politics and security.

• Are you who you say you are? The EU and Biometric Borders

  26 November 2007, by Lodge Juliet
  The question of proving identity using biometric information, storing, accessing and verifying it raises more than technical questions. It goes to the heart of the legal and political values of our politics. The prospect of cross-border automatic information exchange and e-governance beg questions about how an abuse of power can be avoided, democratic accountability sustained, and liberty and security brought into balance.

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