Let's talk about trust, baby! Theorizing trust and mutual recognition in the EU's area of freedom, security and justice

If mutual recognition is to be the ‘cornerstone of judicial co‐operation’ in the area of freedom, security and justice, mutual trust, on the other hand, must take a lead role as the normative glue that grounds and facilitates legal practices of recognition. Despite its topicality and practical relevance, the theoretical underpinnings of trust have been largely left untouched by legal scholarship. This article seeks to fill that void by unpacking trust's conceptual premises to prepare a critique of the legal principle of mutual trust and its underlying ideology as it emerged in the jurisprudence of the CJEU. It presents an enriched conceptualization of recognition trust, inquires into the potential and risks of trust‐based judicial cooperation and sheds light on the interplay of trust, distrust and the law. In drawing policy conclusions from the theoretical discussion, it also points to a new normative dimension of trust asking whether trust could feature as a form of mutual recognition.