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Professor Valsamis Mitsilegas, LLB (Thes/niki), LLM (distinction) (Kent), PhD (Edinburgh)

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Head of the Department of Law and Professor of European Criminal Law

Location: Mile End
email: v.mitsilegas@qmul.ac.uk
Phone: +44(0)20 7882 8124
Website: http://www.law.qmul.ac.uk/cjc

Valsamis Mitsilegas is Head of the Department of Law, Professor of European Criminal Law and Director of the Criminal Justice Centre at Queen Mary, University of London. From 2001 to 2005 he was legal adviser to the House of Lords European Union Committee.

His interests and expertise lie primarily in the area of EU law, in particular EU Justice and Home Affairs (including immigration, asylum and border controls, criminal law, police and judicial co-operation in criminal matters and the external dimension of EU action in these fields). He is also an expert in the field of national and international legal responses to transnational organised crime, money laundering and terrorism. Professor Mitsilegas is a member of the Management Committee of the European Criminal Law Academic Network (ECLAN), a Europe-wide network which brings together academic experts from the EU 27 and beyond. He was General Rapporteur to the 2012 Congress of the International Federation for European Law (FIDE), which will be held in Tallinn (stream on the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice). He is currently the Queen Mary Principal Investigator on a multinational interdisciplinary research project on EU Action to Fight Environmental Crime (EFFACE) funded by the European Commission under the 7th Framework Programme for Research. This 40-month project (2012-2016) aims to assess the impact of environmental crime and develop effective and feasible policy options for combating it at EU level.

Professor Mitsilegas is also a regular consultant to parliaments, EU institutions and international organisations. Professor Mitsilegas is a member of the Commission's Expert Panel on EU Criminal Policy. He is acting as expert adviser to the European Parliament Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE). Professor Mitsilegas was Specialist Adviser to the House of Lords European Union Committee for their inquiry on the European Borders Agency (FRONTEX report [pdf]) and was invited to submit evidence on the Lisbon Treaty to the House of Lords Committees on the Constitution European Union (Amendment) Bill and the Lisbon Treaty: Implications for the UK Constitution [pdf] (6th Report, session 2007-08, HL Paper 84) and the European Union (The Treaty of Lisbon: An Impact Assessment [pdf], 10th Report, session 2007-08, HL Papers 62-I and 62-II). In April 2009, he gave oral evidence to the House of Lords EU Committee for their inquiry on Money Laundering and the Financing of Terrorism [pdf] (19th Report, session 2008-09, HL Papers 132-I and 132-II).

Professor Mitsilegas provides regular advice to the UK Government and the Judiciary of England and Wales. He is actively engaged with the legal profession as regards the impact of European Union law on the domestic legal system. He is the first contributor of a specific chapter on the relationship between EU law and domestic criminal law in Blackstone’s Criminal Practice. He is member of a team drafting case commentaries for the Criminal Law Review. He is also Consultant Editor to EU Law in Criminal Practice (OUP, 2013).

Professor Mitsilegas is a member of two Commission Expert Groups: the Commission Experts Group on European Criminal Policy and the Commission’s Expert Group on needs on data on crime. He provides regular advice to members of the European Parliament, including the European Parliament Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) and the European Parliament Special Committee on Organised Crime, Corruption and Money Laundering (CRIM).

Professor Mitsilegas is also active with NGOs, think tanks and academic networks aiming to shape European and domestic law and policy on immigration and crime. He is an active member of the European Union Sub-Committee of the Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association (ILPA). He was member of a Working Party convened by the Federal Trust which in 2007 produced a Report on EU Justice and Home Affairs and a member of the International Advisory Group to the Refugee Council which, in December 2008 produced a Report entitled Remote Controls: how UK border controls are endangering the lives of refugees which informed the Council’s policy in the field. 

Publications:

Valsamis Mitsilegas' full publications list [PDF 36kb]

Key publications

Books authored

Edited volumes

Articles and chapters

  • ‘The Aims and Limits of EU Anti-Corruption Law’ in J. Horder and P. Alldridge (eds), Modern Bribery Law: Comparative Perspectives, Cambridge University Press, 2013, pp.160-195
  • The Limits of Mutual Trust in Europe's Area of Freedom, Security and Justice: From Automatic Inter-State Cooperation to the Slow Emergence of the Individual, Yearbook of European Law 2012; vol.31, pp.319-372
  • ‘Immigration Control in an Era of Globalisation: Deflecting Foreigners, Weakening Citizens, Strengthening the State’ in Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies, vol.19, 2012, pp.3-60.
  • ‘The Area of Freedom, Security and Justice from Amsterdam to Lisbon. Challenges of Implementation, Constitutionality and Fundamental Rights’, General Report, in J. Laffranque (ed.), The Area of Freedom, Security and Justice, Including Information Society Issues. Reports of the XXV FIDE Congress, Tallinn 2012, vol.3, pp. 21-142.
  • ‘The EU and the Implementation of International Norms in Criminal Matters’ in M. Cremona, J. Monar and S. Poli (eds.), The External Dimension of the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice, Peter Lang, 2011 (College of Europe Studies No. 13), pp.239-272.
  • 'The European Union and the Globalisation of Criminal Law', in Cambridge Yearbook of European Legal Studies 2009-2010, vol.12, pp.337-407
  • ‘The Third Wave of Third Pillar Law: Which Direction for EU Criminal Justice?’, (2009) 34 European Law Review 523-560 - The article is also Queen Mary School of Law Legal Studies Research Paper No 33/2009
  • ‘The Borders Paradox. The Surveillance of Movement in a Union without Internal Frontiers’, in H. Lindahl (ed.), A Right to Inclusion and Exclusion? Normative Faultlines of the EU’s Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (Hart 2009) 33-64
  • ‘La Mise en Oeuvre de l’Espace de Liberté, Securité et de Justice au Royaume-Uni’, (2009) 129 Revue Française d’Administration Publique (the journal of the ENA) 45-60
  • 'The Transformation of Criminal Law in the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice’, (2008) 26 Yearbook of European Law 2007, 1-32
  • 'The External Dimension of EU Action in Criminal Matters' (2007) 12 European Foreign Affairs Review 457-497
  • 'Border Security in the European Union', Baldaccini, Guild and Toner (eds), Whose Freedom, Security and Justice?, (Hart 2007) 359-394
  • The EU legislative framework against money laundering and terrorist finance: A critical analysis in the light of evolving global standards' (with Bill Gilmore), (2007) 56 International and Comparative Law Quarterly 119-141
  • 'The Constitutional Implications of Mutual Recognition in Criminal Matters in the EU' (2006) 43 Common Market Law Review 1277-1311
  • 'Controle des etrangers, des passagers, des citoyens: Surveillance et antiterrorisme' (2005) 58 Cultures et Conflits 155-182
  • 'EU-US Co-operation in Criminal Matters post-9/11: Extradition, Mutual Legal Assistance and the Exchange of Police Data' (2003) 8 European Foreign Affairs Review 515-536
  • From National to Global, from Empirical to Legal: The Ambivalent Concept of Transnational Organised Crime' in M Beare (ed), Critical Reflections on Transnational Organized Crime, Money Laundering and Corruption (University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 2003) 55-87
  • 'Defining Organised Crime in the EU' (2001) 26 European Law Review 565-581

Supervision:

Professor Mitsilegas welcomes proposals for postgraduate research in the fields of EU law in general and EU Justice and Home Affairs law in particular, security, terrorism and human rights, and law and transnational crime (including organised crime and money laundering).

Undergraduate teaching:

  • LAW6001 EU Justice and Home Affairs
  • LAW6001A EU Justice and Home Affairs(A): Immigration and Asylum Law
  • LAW6001B EU Justice and Home Affairs(B):Criminal Law

Postgraduate teaching:

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