The Law Library of Congress, Global Legal Research Center 

(202) 707-6462 (phone) • (866) 550-0442 (fax) • law@loc.gov • http://www.law.gov

INTERPOL: 

Red Notices

July 2010
This report is provided for reference purposes only. 

It does not constitute legal advice and does not represent the official 

opinion of the United States Government. The information provided 

reflects research undertaken as of the date of writing. 

It has not been updated.
LAW LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

INTERPOL 

RED NOTICES 

Executive Summary 

Red Notices issued by INTERPOL facilitate the provisional arrest of 

internationally wanted individuals as part of pre-extradition procedures. 

Although it seems in general that INTERPOL must depend on its member 

countries for a Red Notice request being legitimate and that its chief role in 

verification of a request is to make sure that all the required sets of information 

have been provided, there are certain mechanisms through which it may further 

assess a request’s legitimacy. For example, before publishing a notice to the 

National Central Bureaus (law enforcement contact points in each country) 

concerned, INTERPOL’s General Secretariat will consider the necessity and 

advisability of such action; it must also ensure that the conditions attached to a 

given type of notice (e.g., for a Red Notice, issuance of an arrest warrant or court 

decision) have been met. Moreover, INTERPOL may not undertake “any 

intervention or activities of a political, military, religious or racial character.” 

To determine whether there is an Article 3 violation, INTERPOL distinguishes 

between offenses that by their nature are of such a character on the one hand, and 

offenses whose predominant nature must be more carefully examined to determine 

the constituent components. INTERPOL will analyze the latter types of offenses 

based on their seriousness, the place where the actions occurred, the status of the 

victims, and the seriousness of the offense. This appears to be an internal process. 

As for transparency in terms of publication of notices via INTERPOL, the 

General Secretariat makes an assessment of whether or not to include the sets of 

information as relevant. Publication is also subject to restrictions attached to

them by the source and to the consent of the requesting entity. Before the General 

Secretariat publishes a notice on its own initiative, it must ensure that it has the 

information source’s consent. Disclosure to the public of a notice is subject to 

various types of restrictions as well. 

The treatment of Red Notices varies according to the jurisdiction and the 

circumstances of a case. In general, civil law countries of Europe will carry out 

provisional arrests based on a Red Notice and mutual adherence to a bilateral or 

multilateral treaty, while common law states like Australia, the United Kingdom, 

and the United States will not make such arrests. However, individual states that 

typically enforce Red Notices may choose, based on the circumstances, not to take 

action on a Red Notice even if the treaty conditions are met. 
INTERPOL: Red Notices – July 2010 The Law Library of Congress -2

I. Background 

Red Notices issued by the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) are 

one of seven types of notices (five other color-coded ones and one special notice) distributed to 

share critical information related to crime among police in INTERPOL’s 188 member countries.1

 

Each type of notice contains two types of information: particulars of identity, such as physical 

description, photograph, fingerprints, occupation, and languages spoken, and judicial 

information, such as the offense with which the person is charged or references to an arrest 

warrant or court-imposed sentence. 2 The notices are issued by INTERPOL’s General 

Secretariat, “either on its own initiative, or based on requests from National Central Bureaus 

(NCBs) or international organizations and entities with whom INTERPOL has special 

agreements.”3

 NCBs are located in each member country; typically, an NCB is “a division of 

the national police agency or investigation service and serves as the contact point for all 

INTERPOL operations.” 4 In January 2002, INTERPOL moved from paper to electronic 

issuance of notices on its restricted-access website, thereby permitting member states to access 

5 the notices directly. 

on the legal value of Red Notices was initiated with the organization’s 

member countries.8

 

Red Notices are used “[t]o seek the provisional arrest of a wanted person with a view to 

extradition based on an arrest warrant or court decision.” 6 Of 7,290 notices issued by the 

General Secretariat in 2009, 5,020 were Red Notices. 7 At the beginning of 2009, Interpol 

introduced a new electronic Red Notice form (as part of “Project I-link”). At the same time, a 

consultation process 

1

 INTERPOL was created in 1923. It “is the world’s largest international police organization” and it 

“facilitates cross-border police co-operation, and supports and assists all organizations, authorities and services 

whose mission is to prevent or combat international crime.” About INTERPOL, INTERPOL, http://www.interpol. 

int/public/icpo/default.asp (last visited July 12, 2010). 

2 Notices, Fact Sheet COM/FS/2010-01/GI-02, http://www.interpol.int/pv_obj_cache/pv_obj_id_CEB 

7F028E24FF3DF61A368DD6489359090710300/filename/GI02.pdf (last visited July 8, 2010). 

3 Id. 

4 What Is an NCB?, INTERPOL, National Central Bureaus, http://www.interpol.int/Public/Icpo/NCBs/ 

default.asp (right hand column) (last visited July 9, 2010). NCBs are provided for under Articles 31-33 of the ICPO 

[International Criminal Police Organization] – INTERPOL Constitution, in force on June 13, 1956, as amended. 

5 See, e.g., Interpol’s International Notices System, McNabb Ferrari, P.C., http://www.federalcrimes. 

com/interpols-international-notices-system.html (last visited July 9, 2010). 

6 Notices, supra note 2. 

7 Id. 

8

 COUNCIL OF EUROPE, OFFICE OF LEGAL AFFAIRS, REPORT NO. 13: ENHANCING THE INTERNATIONAL 

STATUS OF RED NOTICES, AG-2009-RAP-13 (July 29, 2009), INTERPOL General Assembly, 78th Session, 

Singapore, Oct. 11-15, 2009, http://www.coe.int/t/e/legal_affairs/legal_co-operation/transnational_criminal_ 

justice/2_PC-OC/agn78r13.pdf. For a sample electronic form, see, e.g., Red Notice Application Form, Indian 

Central Bureau of Investigation, http://www.cbi.gov.in/interpol/rcn_applicationform.pdf (last visited July 12, 2010). 
INTERPOL: Red Notices – July 2010 The Law Library of Congress -3

II. Red Notice Issuance Process

According to INTERPOL, the arrest warrant or court order issued by the judicial 

authorities in the requesting state is the legal basis for a Red Notice, and “many” INTERPOL 

member countries consider the Red Notice a valid request for the provisional arrest of a fugitive. 

Furthermore, a number of bilateral and multilateral extradition treaties—including the European 

Convention on Extradition, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) 

Convention on Extradition, and the United Nations Model Treaty on Extradition—recognize 

INTERPOL “as an official channel for transmitting requests for provisional arrest.”9

INTERPOL describes as follows the use of Red Notices as a means of locating and 

arresting wanted individuals as part of a pre-extradition procedure. After a magistrate or the 

Ministry of the Interior in a country asks its NCB to circulate an arrest warrant internationally, 

the NCB may transmit a request to the INTERPOL General Secretariat for a Red Notice to be 

issued. Once the General Secretariat has examined and checked the request, the Red Notice is 

transmitted to all the NCBs. Each NCB then circulates the notice to the departments concerned 

in its state. If a police department locates the individual being sought, it informs that state’s 

NCB and takes the necessary authorized measures, while the NCB informs the General 

Secretariat and the original requesting NCB. The latter then informs the magistrate who issued 

the arrest warrant.10 

In general, pre-extradition procedures depend on the powers each state confers on its 

national police in applying that state’s extradition laws. Thus, upon receiving an (ordinary) 

wanted notice, the police authorities may decide to trace the individual, carry out an identity 

check, place the person in police custody, question him or her, or place the person under 

surveillance. However, 

In most states, measures of a more serious nature can only be taken if letters rogatory 

have been issued by a judge: this would be the case for a measure such as detention, but 

also for searching persons or premises, provisional seizure of property, documents or 

money, restrictions on freedom of movement.11 

In the case of ordinary general wanted notifications issued through INTERPOL, 

magistrates in requested countries can only grant a provisional arrest if the requesting country’s 

request “complies with the conditions of substance and form laid down in international 

conventions or bilateral treaties.”12 In practice, moreover, according to INTERPOL, the 

process will entail additional correspondence between the requesting and requested states, 

9 Notices, supra note 2. For a non-exhaustive list of international conventions that refer to INTERPOL, see

International Conventions in Which the INTERPOL’s Transmission Role Is Mentioned, INTERPOL, http://www. 

interpol.int/Public/ICPO/LegalMaterials/conventions/Default.asp (last visited July 12, 2010). 

10 Interpol’s Role in Tracing Wanted Individuals with a View to Their Extradition [an INTERPOL Legal 

Fact Sheet] (last updated Mar. 3, 2004), http://www.interpol.int/Public/ICPO/LegalMaterials/FactSheets/FS13.asp

(last visited July 9, 2010). 

11 Id. 

12 Id. 
INTERPOL: Red Notices – July 2010 The Law Library of Congress -4

because the requesting state magistrate must transmit a request for provisional arrest in the 

appropriate form via the NCB and confirm, often within a short interval, that extradition will be 

requested. “The risk is that, in the meantime, the individual might have been able to take refuge 

in another state or have been released from custody.”13 

Red Notices, however, as instruments of police and judicial cooperation, facilitate 

provisional arrests of wanted individuals, because they already contain key prerequisites for 

provisional arrests to be made; they “are formatted documents which cannot be issued unless 

they contain the elements enabling the wanted person to be identified, legal information relating 

to the offence concerned, and reference to a valid arrest warrant or conviction.”14 

A. INTERPOL Rules Relevant to Processing of Red Notices 

The screening process for Red Notices is governed by a number of INTERPOL 

Regulatory documents. In general, under the ICPO-INTERPOL Constitution, the aims of 

INTERPOL are to “ensure and promote the widest possible mutual assistance between all 

criminal police authorities within the limits of the laws existing in the different countries and in 

the spirit of the ‘Universal Declaration of Human Rights.’ ”15 Under its Article 3, the ICPOINTERPOL Constitution also strictly forbids INTERPOL from undertaking “any intervention or 

activities of a political, military, religious or racial character.”16 Since 1998, INTERPOL has 

had a formal set of guidelines in place that more explicitly address the relationship between 

counterterrorism efforts and Article 3. “The key aspect is that terrorist incidents are broken 

down into their constituent parts, the criminal elements of which can then be identified and 

subjected to police investigations.”17 

INTERPOL’s Rules on the Processing of Information for the Purposes of International 

Police Co-operation (hereinafter RPI)18 provide for INTERPOL’s (or its channels’) processing of 

information “in order to prevent, investigate and prosecute ordinary-law crimes” and to assist in 

 13 Id. 

14 Id. 

15 ICPO-INTERPOL Constitution art. 2(1). The Constitution was adopted in 1956 and last amended in 

2008. ICPO-INTERPOL Constitution and General Regulations, INTERPOL, http://www.interpol.int/Public/ 

ICPO/Legal Materials/constitution/constitutionGenReg/constitution.asp#amd (last visited July 13, 2010). 

16 ICPO-INTERPOL Constitution art. 3. 

17 Mathieu Deflem & Lindsay C. Maybin, “Interpol and the Policing of International Terrorism: 

Developments and Dynamics since September 11,” in TERRORISM: RESEARCH, READINGS, & REALITIES 175-91 

(Lynne L. Snowden & Brad Whitsel eds., Pearson Prentice Hall, 2005), available at http://www.cas.sc.edu/socy/ 

faculty/deflem/zinterpolterror.html (citing Malcolm Anderson, “Interpol and the Developing System of International 

Police Cooperation,” in CRIME AND LAW ENFORCEMENT IN THE GLOBAL VILLAGE 95 (William F. McDonald ed., 

Anderson Publishing, 1997)). The Guidelines are called INTERPOL Guidelines for Co-operation in Combating 

International Terrorism. 

18 Rules on the Processing Information for the Purposes of International Police Co-operation (adopted by 

the Interpol General Assembly in 2003, by Resolution AG-2003-RES-04, and in force on January 1 2004, as 

amended by Resolution AG-20054-RES-15 adopted by the General Assembly in 2005 and in force on January 1, 

2006), INTERPOL, http://www.interpol.int/Public/ICPO/LegalMaterials/constitution/info/default.asp (last visited 

July 9, 2010). 
INTERPOL: Red Notices – July 2010 The Law Library of Congress -5

the investigation for, among other reasons, conducting “a search for a person with a view to his 

arrest.”19 In regard to the processing of all notices, the RPI state: 

a. . . .

b. Before publishing and circulating a notice, in particular to entities other than the

National Central Bureaus, the General Secretariat shall assess whether it is necessary

and advisable to do so, in the light of Articles 2 and 3 of the present Rules and the

required security measures, bearing in mind the risks run to international police cooperation, the Organization, its staff, and its member countries.

c. The conditions and methods of processing notices shall be laid down in

implementing rules, in conformity with Article 23 (c,5) below [providing for

implementing rules on the processing of notices to be submitted to the General

Assembly].20

The Implementing Rules for the RPI21 set forth the conditions for publishing Red Notices, 

as well as other types of notices. The Implementing Rules provide that before an NCB or 

authorized international entity requests the publication and circulation of a Red Notice, it must 

ensure that: 

ii. . . .

- the person sought is the subject of criminal proceedings or has been convicted of a 

crime, and references to an enforceable arrest warrant, court decision or other judicial 

documents are provided; 

- assurances have been given that extradition will be sought upon arrest of the person, 

in conformity with national laws and/or the applicable bilateral and multilateral 

treaties; 

- sufficient information is provided to allow for the co-operation requested to be 

effective.22 

The Implementing Rules further stipulate that “[b]efore publishing and circulating a notice at its 

own initiative, the General Secretariat shall ensure that the conditions attached to the given 

notice are met.”23 

B. Verification of Conformity with Rules on Processing Notices 

Under its provisions on the methods of processing notices, the Implementing Rules state 

that the General Secretariat must verify that the process has conformed to the rules and that the 

19 Id. art. 3.1(a)(1). 

20 Id. art. 10.5(b), (c). 

21 Implementing Rules for the Rules on the Processing Information for the Purposes of International Police 

Co-Operation [hereinafter Implementing Rules], INTERPOL, http://www.interpol.int/pv_obj_cache/pv_obj_id_ 

7ECEF13061C8D78EFDC854DEF9ABA2BFCB2E0100/filename/rulesRPI09.pdf (last visited July 9, 2010). 

22 Id. art. 37(a)1(ii). 

23 Id. art. 37(b). 
INTERPOL: Red Notices – July 2010 The Law Library of Congress -6

requesting entity has provided all the required sets of information, although there does not appear 

to be a process for independent verification of the information itself: 

The General Secretariat may only publish a notice once it has verified that the processing 

required conforms to the rules in force and once the National Central Bureau, authorized 

national institution or authorized international entity which requested its publication, has 

communicated to it all the required sets of information.24 

As was noted above, INTERPOL has guidelines explicating the relationship between 

Article 3 of its Constitution and acts of terrorism. INTERPOL also issued a policy document on 

the “Legal Framework Governing Action by INTERPOL in Cases of a Political, Military, 

Religious or Racial Character.” It indicates that Article 3 applies to both the General Secretariat 

and INTERPOL’s member agencies. Some requests submitted by individuals or NCBs may 

concern cases that violate Article 3, and to determine whether there is such a violation, 

INTERPOL makes a distinction “between offenses which are by their very nature considered to 

be of a political, military, religious or racial character, on the one hand, and offenses of which 

the predominant nature must be more carefully studied to determine its constituent components 

[the theory of predominance].”25 In the latter types of cases, INTERPOL considers “whether 

there are links between the aims of the accused and their victims, and bases its analysis on three 

criteria: the place where the action was carried out; the status of the victims; and the seriousness 

of the offense.”26 The same principles underlie INTERPOL’s distinction between prevention 

requests and prosecution requests: “1) requests aimed at prosecuting terrorists are processed in 

strict conformity with the above rules; but 2) with regard to preventing terrorism, Interpol does 

not apply the theory of predominance.”27 

Since November 18, 2003, Red Notices can be issued for the arrest and extradition of 

suspected members of terrorist groups, if “strong evidence of such membership” is provided.28 

Justification for the policy change was based on the increasing number of countries that had 

come to consider membership in a terrorist organization a criminal offense. Before the change 

was made, INTERPOL’s policy was that “the decision to circulate information via the Interpol 

headquarters always had to be based on intelligence indicating that an individual might be 

involved in a terrorist offense, rather than that the individual merely was a member of some 

particular group.” 29

In its Annual Activity Report (2007-Jan. 2008), INTERPOL’s Commission for the 

Control of INTERPOL’s Files noted that checks conducted on the processing of information to 

verify compliance with the organization’s rules “had raised recurring questions.” Some of these 

questions concerned: the validity of arrest warrants issued by police authorities, conformity of 

 24 Id. art. 38(b). 

25 Deflem & Maybin, supra note 17. 

26 Id.

27 Id. 

28 Id. 

29 Id. 
INTERPOL: Red Notices – July 2010 The Law Library of Congress -7

cases with Article 3 of the INTERPOL Constitution, the recording of information on a person’s 

political refugee status, retention of information after cancellation of a search request, and the 

quality of information and the need to consult its source when the information was challenged, 

“to obtain a copy of the arrest warrant in question when it had not been provided and to check 

that the information was accurate and was still of specific international interest to the police.”30 

In regard to the Article 3 issue, the report stated: 

The Commission considered that when the elements provided by the National 

Central Bureau (NCB) which was the source of the information did not make it possible 

to rule out the predominantly political nature of proceedings against a requesting party, 

the NCB in question should provide copies of judicial documents giving a precise 

description of the charges against the individual and demonstrating, firstly, his active 

participation in the offence charged and, secondly, the predominance of ordinary-law 

aspects over the political aspects of the case. 

It recommended, pending receipt of the required documents, that the red notice 

issued against the requesting party be suspended. However, the Commission stated that it 

would not object, on the one hand, to the NCBs still being informed that the requesting 

party was the subject of proceedings, provided that no arrest request had been issued on 

the basis of the information disclosed, or to the publication of a blue notice instead of a 

red one, on the other.31

There are cases where INTERPOL has refused to issue a Red Notice; for example, in connection 

with the extradition of fugitive blogger Raja Petra Kamarudin (“RPK”) from the United 

Kingdom, sought at the request of Malaysia. Raja Petra is viewed as a “political fugitive” in the 

UK, not a hard-core criminal. RPK was reportedly detained twice under Malaysia’s Internal 

Security Act and in their Red Notice request the police may have stated that he was being sought 

in connection with cases of defamation and sedition.32

C. Transparency Issues 

The General Secretariat is to assess, prior to publishing a notice at the request of an NCB 

or other authorized entity, whether or not to include the sets of information recorded in the police 

information system identified by the General Secretariat as being of possible relevance to the 

notice’s publication. Publication of the sets of information is subject to restrictions attached to 

them by the source and to the consent of the entity that requested the notice, and if they are 

included in the notice, the General Secretariat must attribute the additional information to the 

source entity.33 Before it publishes a notice on its own initiative, the General Secretariat is 

 30 COMMISSION FOR THE CONTROL OF INTERPOL’S FILES, ANNUAL ACTIVITY REPORT – 2007 AND JANUARY 

2008, Reference No. CCF/71/12/d118-2, INTERPOL, http://www.interpol.int/pv_obj_cache/pv_obj_id_249 

ABFDC 3872239A0961F7E2D4D5101EDD7F0100/filename/ccf2007.pdf (last visited July 12, 2010). 

31 Id. § 5.5. 

32 RPK Unlikely to Be Extradited from UK, MALAYSIA TODAY, July 7, 2010, http://malaysia-today.net/ 

index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=32947:rpk-unlikely-to-be-extradited-from-uk&catid=19:news 

commentaries&Itemid=100131. 

33 Implementing Rules, supra note 21, art. 38(c). 
INTERPOL: Red Notices – July 2010 The Law Library of Congress -8

obliged to ensure that the sources of the above-mentioned sets of information have consented to 

their being published in a notice. 34 The Implementing Rules provide, in regard to making 

notices public: 

 

(f) Disclosure to the public of a notice and of all or part of the information contained in 

that notice shall be subject to: 

1. the prior approval of the source of that information, and to 

2. the General Secretariat's agreement to proceed with such disclosure, it being 

understood that the General Secretariat shall determine which sets of information 

contained in the notice may be disclosed to the public.35 

INTERPOL’s Commission for the Control of INTERPOL’s Files has detailed rules on its 

operating procedures in connection with granting access to the files. The rules were issued on 

October 31, 2008, and came into force on November 1, 2008.36 

III. Treatment of Red Notices by Different Recipient Jurisdictions 

It is difficult to pinpoint the number of INTERPOL member countries that consider a Red 

Notice to be a valid request for a provisional arrest. Some sources say many of the countries 

consider it to be so, others say some or a few. If the requesting and the requested countries have 

a bilateral or multilateral treaty or convention in force with each other, however, according to 

one commentator, it is “particularly true” that the Red Notice is considered valid for purposes of 

provisional arrest, and “even more so if the treaty or convention allows for the use of Interpol 

channels to forward such requests.”37

According to an article published in 2001, seventy-two of the then 178 INTERPOL 

member countries treated a Red Notice as a formal request for provisional arrest with a view 

toward extradition, provided the requesting and requested states had a bilateral extradition treaty 

covering the offense.38 The U.S. NCB website states “[a]pproximately, one third of INTERPOL 

member countries (not including the U.S.) consider a Red Notice to be a valid request for 

34 Id. art. 38(e). 

35 Id. art. 38(f). 

36 Operating Rules of the Commission for the Control of INTERPOL’s Files, INTERPOL, http://www. 

interpol.int/Public/ccf/Regles.asp (last visited July 12, 2010). 

37 Interpol’s International Notices System, McNabb Ferrari, P.C., http://www.federalcrimes.com/ interpolsinternational-notices-system.html (last visited July 12, 2010). 

38 Mike Muth, Interpol, Your Best Resource for International Investigations, 76 CALEA UPDATE (June 

2001) [reprinted], http://www.calea.org/online/newsletter/No76/interpol.htm.
INTERPOL: Red Notices – July 2010 The Law Library of Congress -9

provisional arrest and will detain” its subject. 39 For most European civil law countries, 

according to a 1989 source, an INTERPOL Red Notice was sufficient for the arrest.40 

Some of the cases in which various countries have apparently taken immediate action to 

make a provisional arrest based on a Red Notice are: 

• France: arrest of a wanted Rwandan national (2008);41

• Germany: arrest of a wanted Rwandan national (2008);42

• South Africa: arrest of a wanted Tunisian national (2010);43

• Tanzania: arrest of Rwandan (2008);44

• Thailand: arrest of a wanted Canadian national (2007).45

Poland is also among those jurisdictions that generally will take action on Red Notices to make 

provisional arrests. Detailed procedures in Poland for the application of the European Arrest 

Warrant and corresponding surrender procedures between European Union Member States are 

described in a 2007 report published by the Council of the European Union.46

The United States is one of the jurisdictions that will not carry out a provisional arrest on 

the basis of a Red Notice and a relevant bilateral or multilateral treaty. Reportedly, “[t]he United 

States cannot recognize a Red Notice as a request for provisional arrest, but does enter other 

countries’ Red Notice fugitives in NCIC [the National Crime Information Center] if the U.S. has 

an extradition treaty with the requesting country and if the Red Notice itself contains all 

information that NCIC requires.”47 Australia, too, will not arrest a person on the basis of receipt 

 39 U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. National Central Bureau of Interpol, Programs: INTERPOL 

International Notice Program, http://www.justice.gov/usncb/programs/international_notice.php (last visited July 12, 

2010). 

40 Paul Lansing & John D. Bailey, The Farmbelt Fuehrer: Consequences of Transnational Communication 

of Political and Racist Speech, 76 NEB. L. REV. 653 n.39 (1997) (citing MALCOLM ANDERSON, POLICING THE 

WORLD: INTERPOL AND THE POLITICS OF INTERNATIONAL POLICE COOPERATION 188 (1989)). 

41 Fourth Rwandan Genocide Fugitive Subject of INTERPOL Red Notice Arrested In France, INTERPOL 

(Feb. 28, 2008), http://www.interpol.int/Public/News/2008/Rwandan20080228.asp

42 Press Release, INTERPOL, German Police Arrest Rwandan Genocide Fugitive Subject of INTERPOL 

Red Notice (July 9, 2008), http://www.interpol.int/public/ICPO/PressReleases/PR2008/PR200834.asp. 

43 Jonathan Clayton & Dominic Kennedy, Mohamed Ali Harrath, Islamic TV Chief, Is Held over Terror 

Claims, THE TIMES (London), Jan. 10, 2010, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east 

/article7002273.ece.

44 Tanzanian Police Arrest Rwandan Genocide Fugitive Subject of INTERPOL Red Notice, INTERPOL 

(Feb. 21, 2008), http://www.interpol.int/Public/News/2008/TanzanianArres20080221.asp. 

45 10 Days After INTERPOL’s Global Appeal Christopher Paul NEIL (Aka Vico) Arrested by Royal Thai 

Police, INTERPOL (Oct. 17, 2007), http://www.interpol.int/public/News/2007/Vico20071019.asp. 

46 COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION, EVALUATION REPORT ON THE FOURTH ROUND OF MUTUAL 

EVALUATIONS, ‘THE PRACTICAL APPLICATION OF THE EUROPEAN ARREST WARRANT AND CORRESPONDING 

SURRENDER PROCEDURES BETWEEN MEMBER STATES’: REPORT ON POLAND, Doc. No. ST 14240/1/07 REV 1 

Restreint UE (Dec. 14, 2007)/ 14240/2/07 REV 2 (Feb. 7, 2008), http://www.statewatch.org/news/2009/apr/eucouncil-eaw-evaluation-rep-poland.pdf. See in particular pp. 17-19. 

47 Muth, supra note 38. 
INTERPOL: Red Notices – July 2010 The Law Library of Congress -10

of a Red Notice. Australian law enforcement officers generally are only authorized to arrest 

those who have committed an offense against Australian law; their powers of arrest do not 

extend to taking action on a Red Notice. Law enforcement must carry out procedures set forth 

under the Extradition Act 1988 to obtain an arrest warrant from an Australian magistrate for the 

arrest of a person at a foreign country’s request, if Australia has an extradition agreement with 

that country. Moreover, 

Australia will only arrest a person for the purpose of extradition where another country 

makes a “provisional arrest request,” or where Australia has decided to accept a formal 

extradition request and has arranged for a magistrate to issue an arrest warrant. Similar 

procedures are followed in other countries, including the United Kingdom.48

In some instances, countries that might typically make a provisional arrest in connection 

with a Red Notice may choose not to take action on the alert. Thus, although INTERPOL had 

issued a Red Notice for World Uyghur Congress (WUC) secretary-general Dolkun Isa, German 

authorities did not respond to the request for his extradition that had been made via INTERPOL 

by China. In another case, Swedish police, on the basis of a Red Notice, had already arrested 

Uzbek dissident Mohammad Solih at the Stockholm Airport, but released him the next day; Solih 

had political refugee status in Norway.49 

Thus, some countries authorize their law enforcement agencies to arrest fugitives based 

on a Red Notice alone; others require a request for an official provisional arrest or for formal 

extradition before they will make an arrest;50 and in some instances, even though the police have 

the authority to make the provisional arrests based on a Red Notice, they may choose not to 

exercise it. 

IV. Concluding Remarks 

A 2009 report on enhancing the international status of Red Notices reviewed some of the 

limits on the effectiveness of the alerts in terms of international cooperation. It noted that the inhouse rules (chiefly related to data protection concerns) to which they are subject are of limited 

scope and not sufficiently stringent, and that the legal value attributed to Red Notices varies 

considerably from one country to another. The INTERPOL General Secretariat recommended 

two courses of action: 

1) Examine the requirements for enhancing the legal value of Red Notices. While the 

Red Notice “currently provides recipient countries with a guaranteed level of quality 

 48 International Crime Cooperation Division, Attorney General’s Department, Australian Government, Fact 

Sheet 5—Extradition and Provisional Arrest at 19, http://www.ag.gov.au/www/agd/rwpattach.nsf/VAP/%288AB 

0BDE05570AAD0EF9C283AA8F533E3%29~fact+sheet+5+-+extradition+and+provisional+arrest.pdf/$file/ 

fact+sheet+5+-+extradition+and+provisional+arrest.pdf (last visited July 12, 2010). 

49 Celia Llopis-Jepsen, Why Did the NIA Bar Dolkun Isa?, TAIPEI TIMES, July 22, 2009, at 8, 

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2009/07/22/2003449242. 

50 USDOJ, REVIEW OF THE OFFICE OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS’ ROLE IN THE INTERNATIONAL 

EXTRADITION OF FUGITIVES App. I, “Process for International Extradition Requests” (Rep. No. I-2002-008) (Mar. 

2002), available at http://www.justice.gov/oig/reports/OBD/e0208/app1.htm. 
INTERPOL: Red Notices – July 2010 The Law Library of Congress -11

with regard to the information provided,” the report states, “it is not sufficient to 

allow States to grant a notice a status guaranteeing the requesting country that 

specific action will be taken if the wanted person is located.” Therefore, the Red 

Notices should “be modified to provide INTERPOL Member States with minimum 

judicial guarantees for initiating proceedings in the event of a wanted person being 

located on their territory.” 51

2) Begin the process of drawing up an international convention on Red Notices.

According to the General Secretariat, “[t]he convention should provide for

mechanisms flexible enough to bring together the largest possible number of States in

the use of this tool, whilst leaving each of them free to define what it considers to be

binding on it.”52

Prepared by Wendy Zeldin 

Senior Legal Research Analyst 

July 2010 

51 REPORT NO. 13, supra note 8. 

52 Id. at 2-3.