Is a Red Notice an international arrest warrant?

The phrase “international arrest warrant” appears in news reports far more often than in any legal text. It describes nothing.

What a Red Notice asks for

INTERPOL’s Rules on the Processing of Data define the purpose in one sentence: Red Notices are published “to search for a wanted person with a view to his/her detention, arrest or restriction of movement” for the purpose of extradition or a similar lawful action. The word that matters is search. A Red Notice is a request from one country, circulated by INTERPOL; the power to arrest belongs to the country where the person is found, under that country’s law.

Why the answer differs from country to country

Some countries detain on a Red Notice while an extradition request is prepared. Others do not. The United States is the clearest example: the Congressional Research Service records that “federal arrests may not be made on the basis of a red notice alone,” and that since 2023 immigration officers “will not rely exclusively on Red Notices or Wanted Person Diffusions to justify enforcement actions.” The United Kingdom moved the other way in 2020, creating a power of arrest without warrant — but only for requests from a short list of designated countries, certified in advance.

The same notice can mean a night in a cell in one country and nothing at all in the next. The variable is the law at the border, not the notice.

What happens after a provisional arrest

Detention on a Red Notice is provisional by definition: the arresting country holds the person only long enough for the requesting country to send a formal extradition request within the deadline its treaty or law allows. From then on the case belongs to the courts of the arresting country, which decide under their own law whether to surrender the person — a decision that can take months and, as Does a refused extradition end a Red Notice? explains, does not itself remove the notice.

What INTERPOL’s own commission can do in an emergency

The Commission for the Control of INTERPOL’s Files can act quickly when it must. Its procedural guidelines allow “provisional measures” in “emergency situations requiring an urgent decision,” giving as examples a case “where an applicant’s extradition is clearly imminent” or where “the applicant is in detention due to data held in INTERPOL’s files” — including blocking the data or removing it from the public website while the request is examined. How the ordinary process runs is in How long does Red Notice deletion take?

Related

• What is an INTERPOL Red Notice?
• Does a refused extradition end a Red Notice?
• How serious must a crime be for a Red Notice?