The short answer. Not lawfully. INTERPOL's rules let a Red Notice seek your "detention, arrest or restriction of movement", but only "for the purpose of extradition, surrender, or similar lawful action". The requesting country must undertake that extradition "will be sought upon arrest", must "act immediately" once told where you are, and risks cancellation if it takes no steps and gives no reasonable grounds. Grounding you is a permitted effect, not a permitted purpose.
What the rules require
Article 82 of the data rules defines the notice by its purpose, “restriction of movement” included: a notice that grounds you is working as designed. Article 84: the requesting bureau “shall ensure … that extradition will be sought upon arrest of the person”. Article 87(b): it “shall act immediately once it has been informed that the person has been located in another country”. Article 81: a notice may be cancelled where the bureau can act, does nothing, and “has not provided reasonable grounds for its lack of action”. Fair Trials documented the pattern in 2013 — a British woman under a Canadian alert for over twenty years, told to buy her own ticket home — and INTERPOL told it Article 81 means removal where a country could request extradition but neither does nor explains.
What the Commission has decided
Four published decisions set the test: the bureau must take appropriate steps towards the notice’s purpose or give reasonable grounds for not acting; knowing your address “does not undermine as such the lawfulness of the Red Notice”. Grounds accepted: the country you live in does not extradite its nationals (2019-03, 2017-03); you left mid-proceedings (2019-08); a refusal on limitation grounds, which earns an addendum, not deletion (2017-03). One went the other way. In 2017-01 the requesting country wanted the person back for an investigation and “is apparently not yet able to seek extradition”; the Commission held that “the purpose of a Red Notice is not to obtain the transfer of a person” for that, called it “premature” and recommended deletion.
Where the line falls
The question is never whether you are grounded but why no request has come. A country with a treaty, your address and years of silence is using the notice for a purpose the rules do not give it, and Article 81 exists for that case — argued on the Commission’s own decisions, not as a complaint about hardship.
How to argue it
Dates first: when the requesting country learned where you were — your arrest, its correspondence, a refused request. Then the treaty position between the two states, and a written answer from where you live on whether a request was received. Then argue it under Article 82 — in Fair Trials’ words, if the country “is using the Red Notice just to spoil your reputation or to stop you travelling, then explain why”. A notice never followed by the request has stopped being a notice.
Related
- What is the difference between a Red Notice and an extradition request?
- Does a refused extradition end a Red Notice?
- Can you travel with a Red Notice?
- INTERPOL — Rules on the Processing of Data, Articles 35, 81, 82, 84 and 87 — interpol.int
- CCF — Decision 2017-01: judicial data, due process, lack of action for extradition (deletion), March 2017 — interpol.int
- CCF — Decision 2017-03: political character, lack of action for extradition (retention with addendum), March 2017 — interpol.int
- CCF — Decision excerpt 2019-03: private matter, lack of action for extradition, 107th session, 28 January–1 February 2019 — interpol.int
- CCF — Decision excerpt 2019-08: international interest, lack of action for extradition (revision), 109th session, 1–5 July 2019 — interpol.int
- Fair Trials — Strengthening respect for human rights, strengthening INTERPOL, November 2013, Part II.3, 'Sui generis abuse: the failure to seek extradition', paragraphs 86–93 — fairtrials.org
- Fair Trials — Toolkit: INTERPOL Red Notices and diffusions, December 2021, 'Not using Red Notice for its intended purpose (Article 82)' — fairtrials.org
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