Università degli studi di Modena e Reggio Emilia

Professor Massimo Donini of Unimore and his team will coordinate an important EU research project

Unimore researchers head a project aimed at fostering the culture of preventing terrorism in Europe. Professor Massimo Donini, who teaches criminal law at the Law Department of Unimore, and his research team will indeed coordinate the “FIGHTER” project (Fight Against International Terrorism. Discovering European Models of Rewarding Measures to Prevent Terrorism).

The fight against international terrorism is one of the top priorities both at European and global level. In order to defeat this threat, the EU has mainly leveraged repressive measures taken from criminal law, that have long been the subject of a “vertical” harmonisation process. However, these are essential though not sufficient measures as such in terms of prevention and control, as the continuous terroristic attacks all around the EU are showing. This mostly happens because adopting simple repressive measures strongly limits the judicial response, which punishes terrorists tried in courts in a unidirectional punitive way, without having proper coordinated tools available at European level to build the fight against the phenomenon through actions targeted to dissociation or detachment and to collaboration during trials, in the context of an overall culture that is not only a clash culture.

The two-year research project has received a financing of over 580.000 thousand euros and is part of the EU Justice Programme 2014-2020.

The work team, that will be managed and coordinated by professor  Massimo Donini, sees several universities and professors of criminal law, criminal procedure and criminology of the whole European Union involved. More specifically, professor Alessandro Bernardi of the University of Ferrara, professor Yves Cartuyvels of the University of Saint-Louis in Bruxelles, professor Zlata Durdevic of the University of Zagreb, professor Julie Alix of the University of Lille II, professor Helmut Satzger of the University of Munich, professor Silvia Allegrezza of the University of Luxembourg and professor Manuel Cancio Melia of the Autonoma of Madrid will take part in the project.

“We are glad to acknowledge this second success (in less than twelve months) of the criminal group in the European field. The "FIGHTER" project on the prevention of terrorism – professor Massimo Donini of Unimore states -, through the development of incentives will allow the research group to provide a real contribution to preventing international terrorism. Despite being a difficult topic to summarise, the objective is analysing the legislation of the main EU countries on incentives for repentant or cooperating terrorists, in view of a better harmonisation of the fight against the phenomenon by means of not only repressive tools but also measures of customised and operational prevention even before a possible conviction. It is not only a study of European laws or practices, but also of meetings with the magistrates and the operators of justice of the various countries in order to understand and develop more suitable strategies, trial tools and substantial means. The Italian experience on the subject has historically obtained good results and can be used as standard in a useful way. On the other hand, the theoretical and scientific approach affects the comparative study of European law models in a sector that is deeply stressed between the need to fight and to safeguard human rights, to neutralise hazards, but also to respect procedural safeguards, the certainty of the types of offence and the equality of penalties of a criminal response that is not of mere exclusion.”

Although it is still under development, the research from Modena deals with the opportunity to change the point of view, fostered by the latest European directive of 2017 on the harmonisation of disciplines against terrorism, and to do it also by exploiting the Italian experience on incentives against “internal” terrorism, for the prevention of the international one.

Professor Vincenzo Pacillo, Director of the Law Department of Unimore, states that “Modena criminal school confirms its excellence, both at a national and international level. It is a pleasure for our Department that one of our colleagues, professor Massimo Donini, coordinates a network that includes some of the biggest and most famous European Universities. I am sure that financed research, which examines one of the crucial phenomena of our era, will deeply impact not only the scientific world, but also the civil society.”

Massimo Donini

He has been a full professor of criminal law at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia since 1998. Since 1983, he has been spending long and constant periods of study at the Planck Institut für ausländisches und internationales Strafrecht of Freiburg (Germany) and at the Institut für die gesamten strafrechtswissenschaften of Monaco (Germany), as well as several research and teaching stays in Chile, Spain, Colombia, Japan, and Peru. He is the author of over 180 publications, and some of them have been translated in English, French, Spanish, and German. Among the research projects he coordinated there are: 1998-2000 “La riforma del diritto penale complementare” (Murst); 2003 — 2005 responsible for the country of the ministerial research project (MIUR) “La riforma del codice penale”; 2007 “L’evoluzione dei Diritto penale nei settori di interesse europeo alla luce del nuovo Progetto di riforma dei Trattat” (Prin). From the harmonisation of Criminal Law to a jus poenale commune, Jean Monnet 2008. Ministerial assessment of the research: VQR 2011-2015: 2/2 excellent; VQR 2004/2010: 2/3 excellent 1/3 good. The Unimore group of IUS 17 (criminal law) ranked first in Italy in the two tenders of research products from 2004 to 2011.

Categorie: International - english