Interpol

History

Until the 19th century, cooperation among police in different national and political jurisdictions was organized largely on an ad hoc basis, focused on a specific goal or criminal enterprise. The earliest attempt at a formal, permanent framework for international police coordination was the Police Union of German States, formed in 1851 to bring together police from various German-speaking states. Its activities were centred mostly on political dissidents and criminals. A similar plan was launched by Italy in the 1898 Anti-Anarchist Conference of Rome, which brought delegates from 21 European countries to create a formal structure for addressing the international anarchist movement. Neither the conference nor its follow up meeting in St. Petersburg in 1904 yielded results.

The early 20th century saw several attempts to formalize international police cooperation, driven by increasing international travel and commerce, which facilitated transnational criminal enterprises and fugitives on the run. The first major effort was the International Criminal Police Congress, held in Monaco in 1914. This event brought diplomats and legal officials from two dozen countries to discuss international collaboration in criminal investigations, the sharing of investigative techniques, and extradition procedures. The Monaco Congress outlined twelve principles that would eventually form the foundation of Interpol, such as establishing direct communication between police forces in different countries, creating international standards for forensics and data collection, and streamlining the process for handling extradition requests. However, the idea of an international police organization remained inactive during the First World War. In 1922, the United States attempted a similar initiative through the International Police Conference in New York City, but it failed to garner international support.

A year later, in 1923, a new initiative was undertaken at another International Criminal Police Congress in Vienna, spearheaded by Johannes Schober, President of the Viennese Police Department. The 22 delegates agreed to found the International Criminal Police Commission (ICPC), the direct forerunner of Interpol, which would be based in Vienna. Founding members included police officials from Austria, Germany, Belgium, Poland, China, Egypt, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Japan, Romania, Sweden, Switzerland and Yugoslavia. The same year, wanted person notices were first published in the ICPCs International Public Safety Journal. The United Kingdom joined in 1928. By 1934, the ICPC's membership more than doubled to 58 nations. The United States did not join Interpol until 1938, although a U.S. police officer unofficially attended the 1923 congress.

Constitution

The role of Interpol is defined by the general provisions of its constitution.

Article 2 states that its role is:

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.

To establish and develop all institutions likely to contribute effectively to the prevention and suppression of ordinary law crimes.

Article 3 states:

It is strictly forbidden for the Organization to undertake any intervention or activities of a political, military, religious or racial character.

Operating procedures

Contrary to the common idea due to frequent portrayals in popular media, Interpol is not a supranational law enforcement agency and has no agents with arresting powers. Instead, it is an international organization that functions as a network of law enforcement agencies from different countries. The organization thus functions as an administrative liaison among the law enforcement agencies of the member countries, providing communications and database assistance, mostly through its central headquarters in Lyon, along with the assistance of smaller local bureaus in each of its member states.

Interpol's databases at the Lyon headquarters can assist law enforcement in fighting international crime. While national agencies have their own extensive crime databases, the information rarely extends beyond one nation's borders. Interpol's databases can track criminals and crime trends around the world, specifically by means of authorized collections of fingerprints and face photos, lists of wanted persons, DNA samples, and travel documents. Interpol's lost and stolen travel document database alone contains more than 12 million records. Officials at the headquarters also analyse this data and release information on crime trends to the member countries.

An encrypted Internet-based worldwide communications network allows Interpol agents and member countries to contact each other at any time. Known as I-24/7, the network offers constant access to Interpol's databases. While the National Central Bureaus are the primary access sites to the network, some member countries have expanded it to key areas such as airports and border access points. Member countries can also access each other's criminal databases via the I-24/7 system.

Interpol issues eight types of Interpol notices, seven of which are: red, blue, green, yellow, black, orange, and purple. An eighth special notice is issued at the request of the United Nations Security Council. As of 2019, there were 62,448 valid Red and 12,234 Yellow notices in circulation.

In the event of an international disaster, terrorist attack, or assassination, Interpol can send an Incident Response Team (IRT). IRTs can offer a range of expertise and database access to assist with victim identification, suspect identification, and the dissemination of information to other nations' law enforcement agencies. In addition, at the request of local authorities, they can act as a central command and logistics operation to coordinate other law enforcement agencies involved in a case. Such teams were deployed eight times in 2013. Interpol began issuing its own travel documents in 2009 with hopes that nations would remove visa requirements for individuals traveling for Interpol business, thereby improving response times. In September 2017, the organization voted to accept Palestine and the Solomon Islands as members.

Finances

In 2019, Interpol's operating income was €142 million, of which 41 percent were statutory contributions by member countries, 35 percent were voluntary cash contributions and 24 percent were in-kind contributions for the use of equipment, services and buildings. With the goal of enhancing the collaboration between Interpol and the private sector to support Interpol's missions, the Interpol Foundation for a Safer World was created in 2013. Although legally independent of Interpol, the relationship between the two is close enough for Interpol's president to obtain in 2015 the departure of HSBC CEO from the foundation board after the Swiss Leaks allegations.

From 2004 to 2010, Interpol's external auditors was the French Court of Audit. In November 2010, the Court of Audit was replaced by the Office of the Auditor General of Norway for a three-year term with an option for a further three years.

Offices

In addition to its General Secretariat headquarters in Lyon, Interpol maintains six regional bureaus and three special representative offices:

Interpol's Command and Coordination Centres offer a 24-hour point of contact for national police forces seeking urgent information or facing a crisis. The original is in Lyon with a second in Buenos Aires added in September 2011. A third was opened in Singapore in September 2014.

Interpol opened a Special Representative Office to the UN in New York City in 2004 and to the EU in Brussels in 2009.

The organization has constructed the Interpol Global Complex for Innovation (IGCI) in Singapore to act as its research and development facility, and a place of cooperation on digital crimes investigations. It was officially opened in April 2015, but had already become active beforehand. Most notably, a worldwide takedown of the SIMDA botnet infrastructure was coordinated and executed from IGCI's Cyber Fusion Centre in the weeks before the opening, as was revealed at the launch event.

Leadership

Presidents

Under the Nazi government of Adolf Hitler, Paul Dickopf was a member of the National Socialist German Students' League, Sturmabteilung and the Schutzstaffel before and during World War II.

Dickopf was elected as the president of Interpol in 1968, apparently aided by the good contacts of François Genoud to the Arab world.

While his former Nazi connections were known, he maintained his post until 1972.

After being charged of corruption in January 2008, Jackie Selebi resigned as president of Interpol and was put on extended leave as National Police Commissioner of South Africa.

In July 2010 Selebi was found guilty of corruption by the South African High Court in Johannesburg for accepting bribes worth €156,000 from a drug trafficker.

Jackie Selebi was temporarily replaced by Arturo Herrera Verdugo, the National Commissioner of Investigations Police of Chile and former vice president for the American Zone, who remained acting president until the appointment of Singaporean Khoo Boon Hui in October 2008.

On November 8, 2012, the 81st General Assembly closed with the election of Deputy Central Director of the French Judicial Police, Mireille Ballestrazzi, as the first female president of the organization.

In November 2016, Meng Hongwei, a politician from the People’s Republic of China, was elected president during the 85th Interpol General Assembly, and was to serve in this capacity until 2018.

At the end of September 2018, Meng was reported missing during a trip to China, after being “taken away” for questioning by discipline authorities. Chinese police later confirmed that Meng had been arrested on charges of bribery as part of a national anti-corruption campaign. On October 7, 2018, INTERPOL announced that Meng had resigned his post with immediate effect and that the Presidency would be temporarily occupied by Interpol Senior Vice-president (Asia) Kim Jong Yang of South Korea.

Criticism

Abusive requests for Interpol arrests

Despite its politically neutral stance, some have criticized the agency for its role in arrests for petty pretexts that critics contend were ultimately politically motivated. In their declaration, adopted in Oslo (2010), Monaco (2012), Istanbul (2013), and Baku (2014), the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) criticized some OSCE member States for their abuse of mechanisms of the international investigation and urged them to support the reform of Interpol in order to avoid politically motivated prosecution. The resolution of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe of 31 January 2014 criticizes the mechanisms of operation of the Commission for the Control of Interpol's files, in particular, non-adversarial procedures and unjust decisions. In 2014, PACE adopted a decision to thoroughly analyse the problem of the abuse of Interpol and to compile a special report on this matter. In May 2015, within the framework of the preparation of the report, the PACE Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights organized a hearing in Yerevan, during which both representatives of NGOs and Interpol had the opportunity to speak. According to Freedom House, Russia is responsible for 38% of Interpol's public Red Notices. There currently are "approximately 66,370 valid Red Notices, of which some 7,669 are public."

Refugees who are included in the list of Interpol can be arrested when crossing the border. In the year 2008, the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees pointed to the problem of arrests of refugees on the request of INTERPOL in connection with politically motivated charges.

In 2021, Turkey, China, the United Arab Emirates, Iran, Russia, and Venezuela were accused of abusing Interpol by using it to target political opponents. China used Interpol against the Uyghurs, where the government issued a Red Notice against activists and other members of the ethnic minority group living abroad. Since 1997, 1,546 cases from 28 countries of detention and deportation of the Uyghurs were recorded. In the case of Turkey, Interpol had to turn down 800 requests, including one for NBA basketball player Enes Kanter Freedom. The UAE was also accused as one of the countries attempting to buy influence in Interpol. Using the Interpol Foundation for a Safer World, the Arab nation gave donations of $54 million. The amount was estimated as equal to the statutory contributions together made by the other 194 members. It was asserted that the Emirates' growing influence over Interpol gave it the opportunity to host the General Assembly in 2018 and in 2020 (that was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic).

Diplomacy

In 2016, Taiwan criticized Interpol for turning down its application to join the General Assembly as an observer. The United States supported Taiwan's participation, and the US Congress passed legislation directing the Secretary of State to develop a strategy to obtain observer status for Taiwan.

The election of Meng Hongwei, a Chinese national, as president and Alexander Prokopchuk, a Russian, as vice president of Interpol for Europe drew criticism in anglophone media and raised fears of Interpol accepting politically motivated requests from China and Russia.

Business

In 2013, Interpol was criticized over its multimillion-dollar deals with private sector bodies such as FIFA, Philip Morris, and the pharmaceutical industry. The criticism was mainly about the lack of transparency and potential conflicts of interest, such as Codentify. After the 2015 FIFA scandal, the organization has severed ties with all the private-sector bodies that evoked such criticism, and has adopted a new and transparent financing framework.

Reform

From 1 to 3 July 2015, Interpol organized a session of the Working Group on the Processing of Information, which was formed specifically in order to verify the mechanisms of information processing. The Working Group heard the recommendations of civil society as regards the reform of the international investigation system and promised to take them into account, in light of possible obstruction or refusal to file crime reports nationally.

The Open Dialog Foundation, a human rights organization, recommended that Interpol, in particular: create a mechanism for the protection of rights of people having international refugee status; initiate closer cooperation of the Commission for the Control of Files with human rights NGOs and experts on asylum and extradition; enforce sanctions for violations of Interpol's rules; strengthen cooperation with NGOs, the UN, OSCE, the PACE, and the European Parliament.

Fair Trials International proposed to create effective remedies for individuals who are wanted under a Red Notice on unfair charges; to penalize nations which frequently abuse the Interpol system; to ensure more transparency of Interpol's work.

The Centre for Peace Studies also created recommendations for Interpol, in particular, to delete Red Notices and Diffusions for people who were granted refugee status according to 1951 Refugee Convention issued by their countries of origin, and to establish an independent body to review Red Notices on a regular basis.

Emblem

The current emblem of Interpol was adopted in 1950 and includes the following elements:

the globe indicates worldwide activity

the olive branches represent peace

the sword represents police action

the scales signify justice

the acronyms "OIPC" and "ICPO", representing the full name of the organization in both French and English, respectively.

Flag

The current flag of Interpol was adopted in 1950 and includes the following elements:

The lightning bolts symbolize fast telecommunication and police work

The blue represents the official color theme of the organization

The Interpol symbol is featured in the middle

Membership

Members

Interpol currently has 196 member countries: Aruba, Curaçao, and Sint Maarten are members of Interpol, although they are dependent territories of the Netherlands and not sovereign states. The Constitution of the Interpol allows membership of dependent territories as long as they meet the criteria under Article 4.

Two member states of the United Nations and three partially-recognized states are currently not members of Interpol: North Korea and Tuvalu, as well as Kosovo, Taiwan, and the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic.

The Republic of China (Taiwan) joined Interpol in September 1961. After the People's Republic of China was seated as "China" in the UN, Interpol transferred its recognition from the ROC to the PRC in September 1984.

Kosovo is represented by United Nations in Interpol.

In 2023, over 60 Interpol member states voiced their support for Taiwan's bid to re-join the organization. Specifically, representatives from Taiwan's diplomatic allies Eswatini, Palau, Paraguay, Belize, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, the Marshall Islands, and Saint Kitts and Nevis spoke up for Taiwan during the assembly.