Law enforcement and access to transborder evidence: the quest for the exercise of digital sovereignty
Abstract
Access to digital evidence has become a daily job for law enforcement authorities (LEAs). But actually accessing it faces legal challenges, especially since data can be stored outside of LEAs’ legal reach. As a consequence, strong tensions between territoriality as the basis for delimiting sovereignty and the ability for a state to exercise criminal jurisdiction in the digital age have emerged, and cross-border access to data has become an issue of sovereignty. This chapter argues that while digital data constitute a challenge for the exercise of states’ sovereignty, states are today looking for solutions to overcome it without giving up on territoriality as the nexus of their legal policy.
Fields of Study & Subjects
European Criminal Justice and Data Protection
European and International Law Studies
International Law and Human Rights
Publication details
- Journal / source
- Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks
- Publisher
- Edward Elgar Publishing
- Pages
- 112–124
- Publication date
- 11 June 2026
- Language
- EN
- Document type
- Book chapter