Conflicts of jurisdiction arise when several states, in accordance with their respective national criminal laws, claim jurisdictional power for themselves to try a suspect for one and the same crime. The cumulation of national jurisdictional powers puts a suspect at the risk of prosecution by several states or even multiple penalisation for the same offense. Parallel prosecution in several states can lead to a conflict-ridden race for the first court decision (following the first come first served principle). Such uncoordinated rivalry between several national jurisdictional powers harbours the potential for inter-state conflict that should be avoided, not least in an area of freedom, security and justice . The proposals presented in this volume for solving conflicts of jurisdiction were developed by the European Working Group, a group of international researchers over a period of two years.
