Interpol is no longer fit for purpose, say Rhys Davies and Ben Keith

Interpol’s funding model exacerbates its governance challenges.

FOR MORE than 100 years, Interpol has played a vital role in combating serious international crime, from terrorism to human trafficking. But the international police organisation, made up of 196 member countries, is now plagued by issues that undermine international co-operation among law enforcers and allow authoritarian states to weaponise its systems for their own ends. The recent appointment as secretary-general of Valdecy Urquiza, a Brazilian police commissioner, offers an opportunity for serious reform. Though his predecessor, Jürgen Stock, left Interpol in better shape than he found it, Mr Urquiza will need to go further to deal with its deep-rooted problems.

Authoritarian states routinely use Interpol mechanisms as a way to subdue dissidents.(Interpol/X)

The first of these is governance. The secretary-general, the full-time leader of the organisation, is assisted by an executive committee—essentially a board of directors chaired by a president. The current president is Ahmed Naser Al-Raisi, a major-general from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), who is under investigation in several countries over allegations of complicity in torture (which he denies). The 13-member executive committee includes representatives from China and Turkey, two of the most prolific abusers of Interpol policy.

At the most recent executive-committee elections, democratic countries failed to co-ordinate, putting forward numerous candidates and splitting their potential votes, while autocratic states voted as a bloc. The result was predictable: states with dismal human-rights records gained more influence within the organisation. In future, democratic nations must work together and unite around fewer candidates to allow the governance of Interpol to be geared towards fairness, independence and efficiency.

Interpol’s funding model exacerbates its governance challenges. Operating on a modest annual budget of around €200m ($225m), the organisation relies on three funding streams: statutory contributions from member countries (roughly based on economic size), in-kind donations of police officers, and voluntary contributions. Just before Mr al-Raisi was elected president, the UAE donated €50m, or roughly a quarter of Interpol’s annual budget, through an arms-length NGO. The funding model should be revised to reduce vulnerability to handouts that could be seen as influence-buying. Donations would still be welcome but they must never be in exchange for perceived favours or public-relations opportunities. Statutory contributions should be increased to make up the likely shortfall.

Authoritarian states routinely use Interpol mechanisms as a way to subdue dissidents. For example, Turkey misuses the Stolen/Lost Travel Documents system to target opponents of Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s repressive regime. By reporting a dissident’s passport as lost or stolen, Turkish authorities ensure targets are denied entry by other countries and potentially returned to Turkey, where they face political persecution and detention in horrendous conditions.

Meanwhile, Interpol’s infamous Red Notice system, whereby a member state issues a notification that it would like someone arrested, has been systematically abused for years. Red Notices were designed to locate serious criminals abroad, but have now become the sniper’s rifle for autocrats: long-distance, targeted and devastatingly effective against political opponents. Russia has consistently used Red Notices, threats of them or other abuses of the Interpol system to target dissidents and businesspeople, from well-known historical cases, such as Bill Browder and Mikhail Khodorkovsky, to recent ones involving Western journalists and those opposed to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Bahrain has also abused the system to target critics, including Sayed Alwadaei, the director of advocacy at the Bahrain Institute of Rights and Democracy in London (and one of our clients).

China, too, uses Red Notices as part of its Operation Sky Net/Fox Hunt in a way that explicitly contradicts Interpol policy. The purpose of a Red Notice is to find suspected criminals with the intent to extradite them. But once China has established an individual’s whereabouts, it will often coerce them to “return voluntarily” though threats, arrests and torture of family members, circumventing any formal extradition process. Sky Net/Fox Hunt purportedly aims to bring corrupt Chinese nationals abroad back to the mainland to face justice, but in reality it functions as part of Xi Jinping’s global campaign to pursue dissidents.

The Commission for the Control of Interpol’s Files (CCF), an independent body responsible for reviewing challenged notices, currently consists of five lawyers meeting quarterly to process an overwhelming caseload. Despite often involving hundreds of pages of evidence, each case can only receive, on average, a matter of minutes of consideration. The CCF should be transformed into a continuous operation with significantly expanded staff and financial resources, funded by higher statutory contributions if necessary. This would make spotting and flagging abuse much easier.

Interpol’s notorious secrecy shields abusers from accountability, so Mr Urquiza should make enhancing transparency a priority. The organisation should publish regular statistics on Red Notice approvals and rejections by country. It should develop a system similar to one used by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an international body that combats money-laundering and terrorist financing. The FATF maintains a public list that sorts countries into tiers, taking into account patterns of abuse and willingness to implement reforms. This would put pressure on abusive regimes to change, and give democratic members clarity about any exploitation of the system. That would allow them to apply extra scrutiny to requests from low-tier jurisdictions.

China, Russia and other autocratic states have developed increasingly sophisticated methods to disguise political persecution as legitimate efforts to combat financial crime and corruption. They exploit flaws in both Interpol’s governance structure and its operational processes. Their bad faith has so far been met with supine indifference. This needs to change.

Reforming Interpol does not mean undermining its legitimate law-enforcement functions. Instead, true neutrality means enforcing rules equally against all member states. Earlier this year we submitted these ideas to Interpol. Our concerns are clear. Our hope is that Mr Urquiza listens and acts.

Ben Keith is a barrister at 5 St Andrew’s Hill and Rhys Davies is a barrister at Temple Garden Chambers. Both specialise in human-rights and international law, and regularly represent individuals challenging Interpol Red Notices.