Prof. Dr. Hans-Joerg Albrecht is a current director of the Max-Planck-Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law and professor at the Freiburg University. The lecture was hosted by Prof. Yue Liling from the China University of Political Science and Law. Prof. Yue Liling gave a brief introduction and welcomed the speaker. Prof. Hans-Joerg Albrecht discussed the lecture topic from three perspectives: European criminal law as a part of international criminal law, European criminal law and the Treaty of Lisbon, and the ways of creating and developing European criminal law.

The detailed analysis and discussion was then summarized by the speaker. The conclusions were the following: First, the strict sense of the European criminal law does not exist, because the criminal law and the criminal punishment are core elements of the sovereignty of states. Thus, when states are reluctant to concede restrictions of sovereignty, it is difficult to create a supranational criminal law. Second, the Lisbon Treaty provides for a new and comprehensive legal framework for developing European criminal law. Third, the formulation of the EU criminal law should focus on the approximation in substantive and procedural criminal law and should be based on the principle of mutual recognition. However, the principle of mutual recognition still faces some problems mainly stemming from significant differences in legal and factual conditions of criminal justice systems..

At the end of the lecture, Prof. Hans-Joerg Albrecht answered interesting questions coming from the students.

Article by LU Qing (CESL Master Student from 2015 Intake)