States Parties undertake to provide mutual legal assistance in criminal matters in accordance with this Convention. Where a State Party has two or more territorial units in which different jurisdictions govern the matters dealt with in this Convention, it shall indicate, at the time of signature, ratification or accession, whether this Convention applies to all or more of its territorial units. In the area of law enforcement, both at the state and federal levels, closely negotiated immunity agreements and moderate advocacy negotiations have gained significant importance in exchange for cooperation. These chords are an ancient practice that now wears sophisticated modern clothing. They can occur in complex cases of white-collar crime, organized crime, drug prosecutions and, from time to time, other significant cases of serious crime. They are a phenomenon that differs greatly from the usual guilty pleas that characterize our municipal courts and that have recently employed students in the criminal system. Unlike the usual admission of guilt, the suspect or accused in cooperation agreements offers more than just a quick result that saves public funds; In such a case, this limited consideration would often not be attractive enough to give rise to leniency, as the government may well be willing to spend time and money on law enforcement. In cooperation agreements, the defendant acts with information and testimony with the promise to allow the State to take action against other defendants who, for one reason or another, are considered most deserving of the most serious form of prosecution. Agreement between the United States of America and the European Union on the Protection of Personal Data in connection with the Prevention, Investigation, Detection and Prosecution of Criminal Offences L 336, 10.12.2016, pp.

3-13) A person against whom criminal proceedings have been instituted in the requested State and whose presence in the requesting State is necessary for the purposes of the administrative assistance provided for herein Convention shall be temporarily transferred to the requesting State for that purpose if the person and the requested State consent to the transfer. EU countries and the US apply the terms of this framework agreement to their bilateral mutual legal assistance agreements. In the absence of such a treaty, the EU and the US undertake to ensure the implementation of the agreement. In accordance with Article 17 of the Agreement, the EU and the US have carried out a review of the functioning of the Agreement during the period 2015-2016. The review concludes that the agreement has generally been a success. The review process also resulted in recommendations to improve the practical functioning of the EU-US mutual legal assistance relationship, including better knowledge exchange between practitioners on each other`s legislation and procedures and better use of technology to speed up the transmission of requests and evidence and general communications. Decision 2003/516/EC on the signing of the EU-United States Agreements on Extradition and Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters In so far as they deem it useful and necessary for the further implementation of this Convention, States Parties may exchange information on matters relating to its application. In view of the diversity of the legal systems of States Parties, the assistance referred to in this Convention shall be based on requests for cooperation at the request of the authorities of the requesting State responsible for criminal investigation or prosecution.

Unlike grand confessions of guilt, the agreement reached in more complex criminal cases cannot be sealed by a conversation in the courtroom just before entering the courtroom. Cooperation pacts can involve contentious issues that sometimes have to be negotiated for months and are ultimately contained in letters of agreement that range from fairly simple to extremely complicated. More importantly, in these cases, the state cannot quickly conclude the agreement with a plea and verdict while protecting its interests. The employee makes a number of promises and makes potentially stressful and lengthy commitments. These include at least interviews and reports and may include covert actions or observations and reports. The employee`s engagements will likely continue in more formal phases with testimony before a grand jury and at trial, and possibly testimony at new trials years later. The State must therefore find a way to make the granting of immunity or plea bargaining conditional on the substantial performance of the obligations promised by the employee. The usual sequence of pleas and condemnations with the application of the resulting double risk clause would render these long-term cooperation agreements worthless, unless the state carefully drafts the agreements to avoid this danger. The adoption of common rules in the field of mutual legal assistance in criminal matters will contribute to the achievement of this objective, a. the offence to which the procedure relates; a summary description of the essential facts of the offence in question, the investigation or the criminal proceedings; and a description of the facts to which the request relates; (j) any other procedure, provided that there is an agreement between the requesting State and the requested State. For these reasons, agreements with promises of cooperation are very different from the general phenomenon of advocacy negotiation. They are exotic plants that can only survive in an environment from which some of the well-known features of the criminal trial landscape have been removed.

It is necessary to find a way to open the lid with a double risk; The conviction (if it is an agreement and not an immunity) must be postponed, perhaps for years; Immunity (if it is an immunity agreement) must be conditional and not irrevocable. .