Since the September 2001 terrorist attacks, transnational activities of security agencies have
been expanded considerably. In parallel, with the establishment and extension of the Area of
Freedom, Security and Justice, the European Union has become an important player in this
field – even more so since the full integration of the policies related to policing, security and
justice into the EU framework with the Treaty of Lisbon.
The paper analyses, from a trans-disciplinary legal and political science perspective, the role
that European courts play in the regulation of such kinds of transnational security activities.
With the European Convention on Human Rights, the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and
the fundamental rights guaranteed by national constitutions, the European multi-level system
currently has a normative framework that is dense compared to the situation in other parts of
the world. Citizens can, under certain conditions, bring cases before national courts, the
Council of Europe’s European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice of the EU.
The paper’s central research question is related to the role that the CJEU plays in the
protection of human rights and civil liberties in the emerging EU multi-level security setting,
and the structural limits of court interventions in this field. The paper shows that the
institutional setting is favourable for a high level of fundamental rights protection. However,
the still emerging normative framework leads to highly diverse outcomes regarding the case
law brought before the CJEU. This outcome is the result of conflicting interests such as
security, individual freedom and the effective application of the relevant secondary EU law
