Profile
Valsamis Mitsilegas is Professor of European Criminal Law and Global Security and Deputy Dean for Global Engagement (Europe) at Queen Mary University of London. He has served in a number of senior leadership roles at Queen Mary, including as Head of the Department of Law (2012-2018), as Dean for Research for the Humanities and Social Sciences (January-December 2017) and as Academic Lead for Internationalisation with pan-university responsibilities (2017-2018). He was also the Inaugural Director of the Queen Mary Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences (IHSS) from January to December 2017 and has been the Director of the Queen Mary Criminal Justice Centre since 2011. From 2001 to 2005 he served as legal adviser to the House of Lords European Union Committee.
Research
Research Interests:
His research interests and expertise lie in the fields of European criminal law; migration, asylum and borders; security and human rights, including the impact of mass surveillance on privacy; and legal responses to transnational crime, including organised crime and money laundering.
Professor Mitsilegas is involved actively in collaborative projects with civil society and NGOs. He is a member of the Research Advisory Group of the Howard League for Penal Reform and a member of the European Union Sub-Committee of the Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association (ILPA). He has been involved in a series of projects with the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) with recent publications including a Report on Access to Electronic Data by Third-Country Law Enforcement Authorities and policy papers on the EU and its Counter-terrorism policies after the attacks in Paris (The EU and its Counter-Terrorism Policies after the Paris Attacks) and Barcelona.
Publications
Valsamis Mitsilegas is the author of six monographs and over 100 articles and chapters in academic volumes. His latest books are The Criminalisation of Migration in Europe (Springer, 2015) and EU Criminal Law After Lisbon (Hart, 2016).
Other recent publications of Professor Mitsilegas include:
- EU Criminal Law, Hart Publishing, 2009;
- The European Union and Internal Security (with J. Monar and W. Rees), Palgrave/Macmillan, 2003;
- Money Laundering Counter-Measures in the European Union: A New Paradigm of Security Governance versus Fundamental Legal Principles, Kluwer Law International, 2003; and
- ‘The Constitutional Implications of Mutual Recognition in Criminal Matters in the EU’, in Common Market Law Review, vol.43, 2006, pp. 1277-1311
Professor Mitsilegas is also a regular contributor to Open Democracy and was guest editor to the Open Democracy week on Surveillance and Privacy in 2016. Other media appearances include BBC Radio 4, the Times Higher Education Supplement, the New Statesman and the New York Times.
Public Engagement
Valsamis Mitsilegas is a regular adviser to think-tanks, parliaments, governments and EU institutions including the European Commission, the European Parliament and the EU Fundamental Rights Agency and is currently serving for a second term as a member of the European Commission’s Expert Group on Criminal Policy. Professor Mitsilegas has been actively involved in the policy debate on the consequences of Brexit for security and criminal justice co-operation. He is Co-Coordinator of the Queen Mary-CEPS Task Force on Brexit and Criminal Justice Co-operation (a project funded by the Open Society Foundation). He has given oral evidence on Brexit and security to the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee, on Brexit and dispute resolution to the House of Lords EU Justice Sub-Committee and on Brexit and data protection to the House of Lords EU Home Affairs Sub-Committee.
Professor Mitsilegas has a leading role in the establishment and development of a number of transnational research networks. He is Co-Coordinator of the European Criminal Law Academic Network (ECLAN) and a member of the Management Board of the International Research Network on Migration and Crime (CINETS). Professor Mitsilegas has held a number of visiting positions in academic and research institutions across the world. Recent appointments include Visiting Professor at the University of Geneva (2015-16), Visiting Fellow at the International Maritime Law Institute (IMLI) in Malta (2015-16), Copernicus Visiting Scientist at the University of Ferrara (2015-16) and Visiting Professor and Louvain Global College of Law Fellow at the Université Catholique de Louvain (2016-17). He is founding General Editor of the Hart Studies in European Criminal Law, of the Queen Mary-Renmin Series on Comparative Criminal Justice Issues in China and Europe and of the Brill Research Perspectives on Transnational Crime. He is also General Editor of the New Journal of European Criminal Law and the Brill series on Immigration and Asylum Law and Policy in Europe. He has participated in a number of research projects involving transnational research co-operation, including the 40-month FP7 interdisciplinary research project on EU Action to Fight Environmental Crime (EFFACE) (2012-2016).
Grants
Professor Mitsilegas has recently been involved in three Commission-funded projects on the development of various aspects of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) and is currently member of a research team funded by the ESRC on a research grant on Anti-Smuggling Policies and their Intersection with Humanitarian Assistance and Social Trust (2016-2017).
