The goal of this conference, organised by the Maastricht University, is to identify the impediments to improving cooperation in the area of criminal matters. The method is to bring together experts from various disciplines to discuss the challenges in the ‘harmonisation’ of the criminal procedural systems of the EU Member States by means of legislation.

The following challenges will be discussed:

- Defining certain interdisciplinary concepts, such as ‘risk’, ‘vulnerability’, ‘proof’ or ‘procedural justice’ for the purposes of EU legal regulation;

- Determining the paths for ensuring proper enforcement of these concepts: legislation, policy or other paths (including: to what extent these matters could be left to the individual discretion of criminal justice actors)?

- Enforcing the respective regulations and other measures in practice: What are the most important obstacles (culture, lack of expertise/training, funding, etc.)? What is our ‘theory of change’ with respect to enforcement by Member States’ governments, national criminal justice institutions, and individual criminal justice actors?

The conference will focus on those concepts, which raise important interdisciplinary questions, and which are subject to the current or prospective EU regulation.