Can INTERPOL circulate a Red Notice against a refugee?

Refugee status is the clearest protection INTERPOL’s rules offer — and one of the least known.

Where the rule comes from

Article 2 of the Constitution requires INTERPOL to act “in the spirit of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights”. Its Repository of Practice draws the consequence: “a request from the ‘country of origin’ in relation to a refugee protected vis-à-vis that country” would prevent the use of INTERPOL’s channels under Article 2(1). In September 2017 the General Assembly adopted a resolution that “formalizes the policy which has been applied to the processing of Red Notices and diffusions against refugees” since the Executive Committee endorsed it in June 2014.

The three conditions

As circulated in 2015, the policy stops a Red Notice or diffusion where, cumulatively, the status of refugee or asylum-seeker has been confirmed; the notice has been requested by the country where the individual fears persecution; and the grant of status is not itself based on political grounds vis-à-vis the requesting country. Each condition does work: a refugee can still face a notice from a third country for an ordinary crime committed there.

A refugee determination is a finding by a competent authority that the person fears persecution from that country. INTERPOL's rules do not let that country use INTERPOL to reach them.

Why INTERPOL needs to be told

The policy only works if INTERPOL knows. The 2017 resolution asks member countries to inform the General Secretariat or the Commission “if an individual has been granted refugee status”, but countries do this unevenly, and a notice may be published without INTERPOL learning of it. The Commission’s 2024 report lists “application of INTERPOL’s policies for refugees” among the grounds on which its Chair or Rapporteur decided requests between sessions — fast-track treatment, once raised. Raising it is the applicant’s job.

How to prove it

The determination itself: the decision granting refugee status or asylum, with the date and the country of persecution named; a translation into an INTERPOL working language; and, where the status rests on the same facts as the notice, the asylum reasoning — often the best evidence that the criminal case is political in character, the Article 3 argument made by a body with the competence INTERPOL lacks. Where the notice predates the status, a deletion request puts the new fact before the Commission; where it postdates it, the request says so in its first sentence. The ten pages begin with the document, not the story.

Related

• What is INTERPOL’s Article 3, the “political character” rule?
• Which INTERPOL rules get a Red Notice deleted?
• Can you act before a Red Notice is issued?