EU Counter-Terrorism Law

...a cogent, tightly-argued book exploring how the EU has changed its policies to combat terrorism. The overall strength of [the book] is in the describing of the antinomies between rule of law and terrorism and in describing the shift that occurred in the EU toward pre-emption. The second strength is in describing how the EU is not so innocent in terms of how it has confronted terrorism. -- David Schultz * Law and Politics Book Review, Volume 23, Number 10 *
...a comprehensive treatise on the European Union's tightening net of legal instruments aiming to constrain terrorism. The book delves into the necessary legal detail to substantiate its claims and presents the law within its political and philosophical context. ...an excellent foundational work on the European Union's fight against terrorism [which] highlights the need for research into a new normality of permanent counter-terrorist laws. -- Christina Eckes * Public Law *
The large-scale terrorist attacks of 2001 (USA), 2004 (Spain) and 2005 (UK) helped harness the counter-terrorist efforts of EU Member States through the development of new institutions, legislation, policies and third country agreements. Some of the new developments were of benefit to law enforcement more generally. The author expertly analyses the principal strands of the EU's response – criminalisation, measures against terrorist financing, targeted sanctions, data surveillance and European Warrants. He also identifies and comments upon the profound challenges which the EU's response, though bureaucratic rather than military in nature, poses to the protection of fundamental rights and the rule of law. Unique in its range and its depth, this is the essential guide to EU counter-terrorism law. -- David Anderson QC * Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation *
The book by Murphy makes an interested reading and is informed with law, politics and sociological discourse. It covers a vast range of legislation enacted in the name of the fight against terrorism, stressing the main character of the law post 9/11, labelled as “counter law” or “law against law”, a new phenomenon of law marked by an increase in power of executive actors, governments, intelligence agencies, and law enforcement actors operating under the umbrella of national security. -- Luisa Marin * European Law Review, Volume 39 *
This valuable book brings together a range of difficult materials on EU counter-terrorism law, renders them easily digestible with an attractive sureness of touch, and then serves them up to the reader with a consistent scholarly perspective that adds immeasurably to critical understanding. The 31st in Hart's Modern Studies in European Law series, the book is a model of the sort of monograph that young scholars seeking to turn their early research into field-leadership should be seeking to do. It is also impressively ahead of its time: coming before the Snowden revelations of quite how far counter-terrorism has been prepared to go, Murphy's book both prepares us for shocks like this and suggests a way that Europe can (and should) react. -- Conor Gearty * Cambridge Law Journal, Volume 73(2) *