Counter-terrorism focus groups

The Dickson Poon School of Law hosted law enforcement officials from across Europe this week as part of a research project investigating the impact, legitimacy and effectiveness of EU counter-terrorism action.

Twenty-six officials from a wide range of EU Member States took part in three focus groups - examining the European Arrest Warrant, measures to counter the financing of terrorism, and EU border control databases.

The focus groups are part of the SECILE research project being carried out by King’s in collaboration with six other institutions and funded by the EU Framework Programme 7. The King’s research team is led by Dr Cian Murphy under the auspices of the Centre of European Law, with the assistance of Dr Aldo Zammit Borda, Research Associate, and Ms Lucy Hoyte, Research Assistant.

Dr Murphy notes: “The work done this week has yielded some excellent insights into the operation of EU counter-terrorism measures on the ground. There are some excellent critiques of EU counter-terrorism action available in the literature but they mostly look at the law in the books. We can now test those critiques using data on how the law actually works in practice. The area of counter-terrorism has been at the forefront of the transnationlisation of law over the past decade so to have this comparative data is vital to its proper understanding.”

The research builds on Dr Murphy’s previous work in his prize-winning monograph EU Counter-terrorism Law: Pre-emption and the Rule of Law. It will lead to reports and academic publications over the next twelve months. First, however, the SECILE Research Team must get to grips with their data. Dr Zammit Borda states that: “Our next task is to examine the reflections of the past week to explore commonalities across the three case studies. Are there ways in which the European Arrest Warrant has faced similar challenges as counter-terrorist finance? Now it’s time to find out!”