INTERPOL’s Red Notices: Human Rights Safeguards for Targeted Individuals

The decentralized international legal order arguably creates structural incentives for states to utilize INTERPOL—an entity of virtually universal membership—to reduce gaps in transnational police cooperation. One of INTERPOL’s iconic actions is the release of a Red Notice. It is the publication of decentralized requests by a member country or approved international entities such as the International Criminal Court (ICC),1 asking police worldwide to locate and, if applicable domestic law and treaties permit, provisionally arrest wanted persons or restrict their movement, pending extradition or surrender.2 Although INTERPOL does not have legal authority to oblige members to arrest persons in question, a Red Notice regularly leads to border stops or arrest pending extradition, travel or visa denials, and knock-on effects such as banking and employment difficulties. The fragmented international legal order may have paradoxically generated structural incentives to support a level of centrality represented by INTERPOL.