Abuse of the Red Notice System Interpol Notices are “international requests for cooperation or alerts” that enable the sharing of information on wanted individuals among Interpol’s member countries. A National Central Bureau can submit a notice, and once published the notice is available to all member countries. There are many types of notices, but it is Red Notices that are most pertinent to transnational repression. A Red Notice is a “request to law enforcement worldwide,” submitted by an Interpol member country, or an international court or tribunal, “to locate and provisionally arrest a person pending extradition, surrender, or similar legal action.” It contains information on the wanted person, including the crime for which the individual is wanted. A Red Notice is an alert, not an arrest warrant. Interpol’s member countries independently decide whether and how to respond to a given Red Notice. When a government uses Interpol, and specifically Red Notices, to illegitimately target a national living abroad, that is transnational repression. While Interpol has certain standards and processes in place to prevent such activity, which member states are expected to uphold, abuses have continued to occur. In Interpol‘s 2021 annual report, Secretary General Jürgen Stock reaffirmed that Interpol processes take the respect and protection of human rights very seriously. According to Interpol, every request for a Red Notice is reviewed by the Notices and Diffusions Task Force (hereafter referred to as “Task Force”) to ensure that it complies with Interpol’s rules, and that it is not politically, military, religiously, or racially motivated; all prohibited by Interpol’s constitution. The Task Force asserts that it will consider the background of the individual concerned, such as if they are an activist or a refugee, and the context of the case at hand, including any relevant political developments.8 The Task Force may also consider if the requesting government has a pattern of rejections of past Red Notices requests. An average of 1,000 Red Notice requests are rejected each year according to Interpol’s data, but an explanation for the rejection is not publicly available. Interpol has made progress in ensuring that refugees are protected from abusive Red Notices. In 2017, Interpol’s General Assembly adopted a resolution on “Interpol policy on 8 Correspondence from Interpol’s General Secretariat to Human Rights Watch dated December 13, 2023 35 HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH | FEBRUARY 2024