Between Aims and Execution: Value Trade-Offs in the Practical Implementation of the European Arrest Warrant?

The European Union (EU) increasingly develops and implements policies infused with salient and sometimes conflicting values – for instance, in migration and criminal law cooperation. However, policy implementation studies have not frequently considered how such complex value trade-offs may affect practical implementation within Member States. This article therefore quantitatively and temporally examines the practical implementation of an EU flagship criminal law measure: the simplified extradition system known as the European Arrest Warrant (EAW). Using data on EAWs decided upon by the Dutch Amsterdam District Court, we test the impact of value trade-offs by examining whether (newly introduced) safeguards for the protection of requested persons adversely affect system efficiency (measured through case turnover times). The results suggest that the design of legal tests and adjustments made to the EAW system over time through the Court of Justice of the European Union affect the balance between fundamental rights protection and efficiency in the practical implementation of the EAW

Nature or nurture? Agency life\u2010cycles as a function of institutional legacy, political environment, and organizational hardwiring

Abstract: A growing body of literature attempts to explain the life\u2010cycles of public sector organizations. Of particular interest have been the form and incidence of their birth and termination, and connecting these events to such variables as legal status and political ideology. Less attention has been given to the effect of intermediary life\u2010cycle events, the tasks performed by agencies, and their policy domains. This study builds on existing fixed characteristics (nature) and dynamic environmental (nurture) approaches and uniquely supplements them with a new institutional legacy paradigm that examines how previous organizational reforms influence future reform. Moreover, we advance existing studies by providing more comprehensive tests of the role that task type and policy domain play. Finally, we retest \u201cclassic\u201d nature and nurture variables, namely, political turnover and legal form. Results suggest that nature and nurture provide important pieces of the organizational life\u2010cycle puzzle and that nurture comprises both external and intra\u2010organizational dynamics

Between aims and execution : value trade-offs in the practical implementation of the European Arrest Warrant?

Abstract: The European Union (EU) increasingly develops and implements policies infused with salient and sometimes conflicting values \u2013 for instance, in migration and criminal law cooperation. However, policy implementation studies have not frequently considered how such complex value trade-offs may affect practical implementation within Member States. This article therefore quantitatively and temporally examines the practical implementation of an EU flagship criminal law measure: the simplified extradition system known as the European Arrest Warrant (EAW). Using data on EAWs decided upon by the Dutch Amsterdam District Court, we test the impact of value trade-offs by examining whether (newly introduced) safeguards for the protection of requested persons adversely affect system efficiency (measured through case turnover times). The results suggest that the design of legal tests and adjustments made to the EAW system over time through the Court of Justice of the European Union affect the balance between fundamental rights protection and efficiency in the practical implementation of the EAW