Key Points

• The EU and the US kicked off negotiations in September 2019 for the conclusion of a very important agreement on Law Enforcement Agents’ (LEA) access to data. This is the first article to present the context of these negotiations and the numerous challenges surrounding them.
• There are strong divergences between the EU and the US about what the scope and the architecture of this agreement should be. The US government supports the conclusion of a ‘framework agreement’ with the EU to be followed by bilateral agreements with EU Member States—in order to satisfy CLOUD Act requirements. The EU wishes to arrive at a self-standing, EU-wide comprehensive agreement and is opposed to solutions that might lead to fragmentation and unequal treatment between EU Member States.
• This article presents a detailed EU Law perspective on all these issues, and refers to relevant precedents concerning the conclusion of law enforcement, data-related or other international agreements. It discusses the division of competence on e-evidence between the EU and its Members States; possible architecture for the agreement and options under EU Law; and the role of the respective European Institutions (Commission, Council, Parliament) in the negotiation and conclusion of such an agreement.
• The article also studies, using existing case law, what the role of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) could be in relation to such an EU–US e-evidence Agreement.
• A post-scriptum also examines what the effects could be of the 16 July 2020 Schrems II Judgment of the CJEU on the ongoing EU–US negotiations, as well as the relevance of the 6 October 2020 data retention/collection judgments of the CJEU.
• The article will be useful to anyone interested in transatlantic data flows as well as judicial cooperation matters and, beyond its specific scope, could be used as a real ‘guide’ to EU Law procedures, options and precedents in relation to the conclusion of international data-related agreements.

中文翻译：

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欧盟-美国关于执法部门获取数据的谈判：分歧、挑战和欧盟法律程序和选项

关键点

• 欧盟和美国于 2019 年 9 月开始谈判，以达成一项非常重要的执法机构 (LEA) 数据访问协议。这是第一篇介绍这些谈判的背景以及围绕它们的众多挑战的文章。
• 欧盟和美国之间在该协议的范围和架构应该是什么方面存在很大分歧。美国政府支持与欧盟达成“框架协议”，然后与欧盟成员国达成双边协议——以满足 CLOUD 法案的要求。欧盟希望达成一项独立的、欧盟范围内的全面协议，并反对可能导致欧盟成员国之间分裂和不平等待遇的解决方案。
• 本文对所有这些问题提出了详细的欧盟法律观点，并参考了有关缔结执法、数据相关或其他国际协议的相关先例。它讨论了欧盟及其成员国之间关于电子证据的权限划分；欧盟法律下协议和选项的可能架构；以及各个欧洲机构（委员会、理事会、议会）在此类协议的谈判和缔结中的作用。
• 本文还使用现有判例法研究了欧盟法院 (CJEU) 在与此类欧盟-美国电子证据协议相关的情况下可能发挥的作用。
• 后记还考察了欧盟法院 2020 年 7 月 16 日施雷姆斯 II 判决对正在进行的欧盟-美国谈判的影响，以及欧盟法院 2020 年 10 月 6 日数据保留/收集判决的相关性。
• 这篇文章对任何对跨大西洋数据流和司法合作事项感兴趣的人都有用，并且超出其特定范围，可以用作欧盟法律程序、选项和与国际数据结论相关的先例的真正“指南” - 相关协议。