International organizations and the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice

Abstract

The Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (AFSJ) is possibly one of the most challenging fields of EU competences. Indeed, the integration into an AFSJ directly affects three fundamental aspects of constitutional relevance: the residual extent of national sovereignty, the monopoly of the state to maintain public order and public security, and the vertical relationship between the exercise of public authority against fundamental freedoms and civil liberties. In spite of its predominantly internal nature, the AFSJ has been steadily growing externally too (Monar, 2014). The externalization of the AFSJ implies that the EU may want or need to engage with international organizations (IOs). The scope of this chapter is to provide an overview of the role that international organizations have played and can play in the development of the AFSJ. The chapter looks first into the different types of relationships between the EU and other IOs in the area of Justice and Home Affairs. It then looks at the normative principles behind the externalization of the AFSJ and what this means for EU-IO relations and concludes with some further reflections on the nature of the field and where academic research should go next.