March 29, 2017

Regulation of International Police Cooperation

By Saskia Hufnagel
A considerable amount of research has examined European Union (EU) and United States (US) cross-border law enforcement, while police cooperation in other regions of the world has rarely been investigated. This presentation outlines both EU and US cooperation regulation and practice, but puts them into context by comparing other regions, such as Greater China and Australasia. Police cooperation can be based on legally binding treaties and agreements, but is just as often unrecorded, informal police-to-police practice only. By assessing US, EU, Greater China, and Australasian law enforcement mechanisms in more depth, different forms of cooperation and levels of formalisation can be distinguished. It can be observed that cooperation depends heavily on the political systems and the historical development of policing and security mechanisms in each region. While it could be assumed that the highest level of formalisation can be found at the international level, this study has found the highest level of formalisation in all systems addressed in the EU. The presentation aims at explaining this development and pointing out some general principles that might apply to police cooperation strategies in different regional scenarios across the globe.