Accountability in EU Security and Defence: The Law and Practice of Peacebuilding(Oxford Studies in European Law)

Currently, some 2,500 civilian experts work across Europe, Africa, and Asia in ten ongoing civilian missions launched under the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). Mandates cover a broad range of multidimensional tasks, such as rule of law support, law enforcement capacity building, or security sector reform. Numerous (recent) incidents from the field underscore that there are serious institutional as well as procedural weaknesses and irregularities tied to accountability in these EU peacebuilding missions.This title offers a comprehensive legal analysis and empirical study of accountability concerning the Union's peacebuilding endeavours, also referred to as civilian crisis management. Along with examining the governance credentials of EU peacebuilding, the monograph thoroughly scrutinizes de jure and de facto accountability arrangements of political, legal, and administrative nature existing in the domestic sphere, at EU level, and across levels. With a view to providing for a nuanced picture, the assessment further distinguishes between different accountability finalities and evaluates the appropriateness of existing accountability arrangements in civilian crisis management based on a combination of quantitative and qualitative criteria.

Table of Contents:
1: Accountability for EU Peacebuilding Missions 2: Unpacking the Civilian Dimension of EU Security and Defence 3: Accountability: a Complex Concept for a Compound Policy Tool 4: Research Design 5: Political Accountability: Unsteady Parliamentary Involvement 6: Legal Accountability: Beyond Jurisdictional Reach? 7: Administrative Accountability: Separate but Complementary Fora 8: Civilian Crisis Management in an Accountability Crisis?

About the Author :
Dr Carolyn Moser is Head of Research Group and Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg, Germany. Her research interests are at the intersection of international and European law and governance, with a particular focus on foreign policy and security issues.

Review :
The theoretical framework of the book is extremely thorough, with strong analytical components detailing both concepts and methods of accountability as derived from prior contributions. The initial assumptions of the research are entirely reasonable. The methodology of the substantive inquiry blends legal doctrinal scholarship with interviews with policymakers. This is a welcome addition to the previous literature on EU security and defence, which tended to focus on only one of these approaches ... Accountability in EU Security and Defence is an excellent product and an invaluable read for the specialist with an interest in the EU law or foreign affairs policy, and to those with an interest in the accountability of the EU more broadly. The work demonstrates how legal analyses, often focusing on texts and decisions, can be integrated with insights and approaches from political science. This study offers an interesting and valuable counter-reading of the EU and its institutional architecture.