This handbook is designed to assist defence lawyers who have been instructed or assigned to act for a requested person in European Arrest Warrant (EAW) proceedings both in the Issuing and Executing Member States.

The handbook aims to provide practical answers for defence lawyers with little time and pending EAW proceedings.

It is primarily intended as a resource for lawyers who have had little experience of these proceedings and are unfamiliar with how to defend an EAW case.

As this is a preliminary guide, we provide brief and easy-to-follow explanations and summaries of the relevant EU law. Defence practitioners should be aware that national law and national jurisprudence may provide additional options in defending an EAW case.