Research Group on Procedural Law and International Police Cooperation

The Research Group on Procedural Law and International Police Cooperation consists of a team of academics from the University of Eastern Finland Law School, and it focuses on conducting legal research in different areas of procedural law and international police cooperation.

Procedural law deals mainly with the procedures related to judicial proceedings, such as pre-trial investigation and coercive measures, prosecutorial actions, trial proceedings in criminal, civil and administrative cases, enforcement of judicial decisions, and alternative dispute resolutions.

International police cooperation traditionally refers to the various types of cooperation taking place among police institutions of different states. International police cooperation can be formal or informal, and it can be conducted at the bilateral or multilateral level. However, nowadays cooperation is often conducted through platforms provided by specialized regional or international entities, such as Europol and ICPO-INTERPOL.

The Research Group on Procedural Law and International Police Cooperation adopts different approaches to legal research, mainly following the doctrinal tradition. For what concerns the field of procedural law, the research conducted by our research group is comprehensive and wide in scope, focusing on different aspects of civil and criminal procedural law. As such, the research group has expertise on different areas, including pre-trial and coercive measures, as well as the legal status of children in criminal processes. The research output of the group in these topics is published mainly in Finnish, thus it is relevant and influential on the domestic level. For what concerns the field of international police cooperation, the research interests of the group lie mainly on the study of the different modes of cooperation promoted by the ICPO-INTERPOL. The research output of the group in this area is published mostly in English and is internationally recognized.

The members of the Research Group on Procedural and International Police Cooperation teach a variety of courses on procedural law. Additionally, members of the group teach several advanced courses in limitrophe areas such as transnational criminal law, and courses on the study of methodological approaches to legal research. The members of the group are also in charge of supervising theses in criminal and procedural law at the bachelor, master, and doctoral levels.

The person in charge of the Research Group on Procedural Law and International Police Cooperation is Mika Launiala. The coordinators of the group are Elisa Silvennoinen (Procedural Law) and Giulio Calcara (International Police Cooperation).