The United States and most of the other 195 member nations of the international police-coordination organization Interpol are currently deciding whether to sign a recent agreement that would provide near-complete immunity for Interpol’s main function: the processing and sharing of data about individuals for global law enforcement. This agreement is an important and disturbing instrument for everyone concerned about Interpol abuse.
If the agreement is widely adopted, it will ultimately increase the ability of autocratic regimes around the world to abuse Interpol’s famous Red Notices and other Interpol instruments to harass individuals such as opposition political figures, journalists, entrepreneurs, or others seeking refuge abroad from repression at home.
The most recent Interpol General Assembly, held in Marrakesh, Morocco, on Nov. 24-27, 2025, adopted the new General Agreement on the Privileges and Immunities of Interpol (the “General Agreement”), sending it to Interpol’s member nations for signature and, depending on national process, ratification. The General Agreement would have little direct effect in the United States, which already grants legal immunity to Interpol. A U.S. signature would however, signal approval of the General Agreement, which will have a significant impact in many jurisdictions where historically, the fact that Interpol was not immune from suit created much-needed impetus for reform within the organization.
Though far from perfect, these reforms, most implemented after 2015, created additional protections for individuals subject to illegitimate targeting using Interpol mechanisms. Unfortunately, the General Agreement substantially reduces the threat of judicial liability which acted as a guardrail, helping to protect victims of abuse by spurring sua sponte reforms. The General Agreement will also have the unfortunate impact of largely eliminating an important driver of transparency and accountability in Interpol by disempowering reform-minded individuals and nations inside Interpol that want the organization to improve.
Interpol abuse is part of the wider phenomenon of transnational repression. As summarized in a 2025 New Lines Institute report by two of us, Bromund and Grossman, (with co-author Bradley Jardine), transnational repression “occurs when governments extend their reach beyond borders to attempt to silence or eliminate critics living in other countries.”
Interpol is a tool that its member nations can abuse by manipulating its systems for purposes prohibited by Interpol’s Constitution, which requires Interpol to act in accordance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and to avoid involvement in racial, religious, military, or political matters. The consequences of unjust targeting through Interpol can be devastating, ranging from imprisonment to the loss of travel privileges, the closure of bank accounts, reputational damage, and removal or extradition to the abusing nation.
Individuals fight Interpol abuse by presenting the facts about their persecution to counter the claims the offending nation has made through Interpol. Victims of abuse can work through advocacy in national court systems, through the media as appropriate, and by appealing to the Commission for the Control of Interpol’s Files (CCF), Interpol’s appellate body.
But because the abuse is carried out through Interpol’s data-sharing systems, individuals suffering from it should have a way to hold Interpol to legal account. If the new General Agreement is implemented, it will – as it is designed to do – raise new and substantial barriers against Interpol accountability. As a result, it will also disempower reformers both inside Interpol and out of it, and reduce the organization’s commitment to reform.
In the United States, the General Agreement will almost certainly be treated as a congressional-executive agreement, not a treaty, and thus will not come before the Senate. This is because Congress has already given the Executive Branch wide powers to grant immunities to public international organizations, and the President can do what is required by the General Agreement within his existing authorities. But just because the Senate will not be called upon to advise and consent does not mean that Congress – and those outside it – cannot weigh in on the General Agreement as the Executive Branch decides whether to sign it in advance of the next meeting of the Interpol General Assembly in Hong Kong from November 30 to December 3, 2026.
Understanding why the United States should not sign the General Agreement requires understanding four elements: the history of Interpol’s immunities in the U.S., Interpol’s efforts since 2015 to reform and to pursue a legal risk-mitigation strategy in light of its concern over potential European legal challenges, the General Agreement itself, and the effect the General Agreement will have on efforts to reform Interpol to reduce abuse of its systems.
Interpol Immunity in the United States
Interpol’s status in the United States as an international organization that is generally immune from liability for tortious acts in U.S. courts evolved over a period of over five decades. In 1950, the International Criminal Police Commission (ICPC) — Interpol’s predecessor — published a Red Notice on Czechoslovakian dissidents who had hijacked several planes to West Germany. In response, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, who believed the ICPC should not be used to pursue refugees fleeing the Eastern Bloc, ordered the United States to withdraw from ICPC.
The departure of the United States led Interpol in 1956 to adopt a new constitution that explicitly barred it from involvement in political affairs. That principle continues to govern the organization today. Hoover’s action and the new constitution pointed out that one of the primary factors shaping Interpol – then as now – are disputes about how the organization should respond to abuses perpetrated through its network. In 1956, at least, Interpol’s response was to reform.
It was not until the Reagan administration that the United States fully re-committed to engagement with Interpol, a move symbolized by the election of John R. Simpson, then director of the U.S. Secret Service, as president of Interpol in 1984. It was under President Ronald Reagan that Interpol received its first tranche of immunities under the International Organization Immunities Act (IOIA), 22 U.S.C. Section 288, via Executive Order. The IOIA sets out the process for designating an organization as an “international organization,” which entitles them to the same immunity granted to foreign sovereigns, subject to certain limited exceptions. Congress passed the IOIA in 1945 because of the increasing U.S. participation in international organizations, including placing the headquarters of the United Nations in New York.
Interpol received these initial IOIA privileges and immunities, in large part, because of a lawsuit brought in 1977 by Leon Steinberg, a resident of Florida, who sued Interpol and its Secretary General for defamation. In 1982, the U.S. Court of Appeals summarized the facts of the case:
“Steinberg’s complaint identifies an Interpol document, titled ‘Blue International Notification 500/59-A3674,’ describing him as a wanted international criminal who used the alias ‘Mark Moscowitz.’ Interpol widely communicated the Notification, Steinberg alleges, to its liaisons, among them, the United States National Central Bureau (USNCB), now located in the Department of Justice . . . Steinberg asserts [that] he notified Interpol and twice offered proof that the Notification was erroneous. Despite the proof he offered, Steinberg further states, Interpol continued to publish the Notification and other statements associating Steinberg with ‘Mark Moscowitz.’ It did so, according to Steinberg, until late July 1976, when Interpol finally conceded Leon Steinberg was not ‘Mark Moscowitz.’ Steinberg seeks general and punitive damages for the substantial injury he alleges he has suffered as a result of the Blue International Notification.”
The Court of Appeals found that Steinberg had standing and could hold Interpol accountable in U.S. courts “for a publication Interpol sent here and abroad that Steinberg claims is a libel, causing him shame, humiliation, and mental suffering.” As no president had yet designated Interpol as a public international organization under the IOIA, Interpol had no IOIA immunities.
With Interpol vulnerable to lawsuits in the United States, and with the Reagan administration increasingly interested in involving Interpol as an ally in the fight against international terrorism, on June 16, 1983, President Reagan declared Interpol to be a public international organization and extended to it selected immunities. This included providing Interpol and its personnel protection from lawsuits of the sort brought by Steinberg. Interpol was now freer to engage in international police cooperation in the United States without the threat of judicial action by individual citizens.
In 1995, President Bill Clinton extended additional IOIA immunities to Interpol relating to customs duties, foreign agent registration, import taxes, and protection of its official communications. On Dec. 17, 2009, soon after Interpol opened an office in New York City that works with the United Nations to support sanctions issued by the U.N. Security Council, President Barack Obama further solidified Interpol’s position as immune from most judicial action by extending a final tranche of privileges and immunities under the IOIA.
Since 2009 — and for most practical purposes since 1983 — Interpol has thus enjoyed broad legal immunity in the United States, similar to that enjoyed by foreign nations. This status has on occasion been challenged. For example, in 2021, Oussama El Omari brought a complaint against Interpol. El Omari, a U.S. citizen, argued “negligent infliction of emotional distress and violation of his right to due process of law under the New York State Constitution, after Interpol refused to delete a so-called ‘red notice’ identifying El Omari as a convicted criminal in the United Arab Emirates.”
Unfortunately for El Omari, the District Court for the Eastern District of New York dismissed his action in 2021, finding that Interpol is a protected organization under the IOIA, and “thus enjoys the same immunity from suit normally enjoyed by foreign sovereigns.” The decision was affirmed by the U.S. Court of Appeals in May 2022. The question of Interpol’s broad immunity from lawsuits in the United States thus appears to be settled law.
Other cases, like the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2019 Jam v. International Financial Corporation decision limiting the protections accorded to international organizations, do set boundaries on absolute immunity. But in Jam, the Court only allowed international organizations to be sued in U.S. federal courts for conduct arising from their commercial activities, and Interpol conducts only incidental commercial activities (i.e. the small-scale sale of Interpol memorabilia). Interpol’s position as a public international organization in the U.S. thus makes it immune, subject to a narrow set of exceptions, from judicial review.
The Risk of Private Claims Against Interpol in European Courts
In Europe, Interpol’s immunities evolved differently. Indeed, events in Europe have shaped the reforms Interpol has undertaken since 2015, defined its legal risk-mitigation strategy, and created the impetus for the Marrakech General Agreement. Of course, Europe is not the only part of the world that matters for the General Agreement – if the U.S, for example, were to sign the General Agreement, that would undoubtedly encourage other nations to sign it too. But it is certainly true that the risk of legal challenges in Europe has been central to the evolution of Interpol since 2015, and that, to the extent the members of the Council of Europe sign the General Agreement, that risk will be diminished.
The story of Interpol’s most significant reforms began in 2015, when Interpol paid out a net €1.511 million in what is known in Interpol’s financial reporting as the “Red Notice Case Settlement.” This settlement represented almost 48 percent of Interpol’s operating deficit of €3.179 million in 2015. Interpol divulged almost no information about the Red Notice case, which concerned Indonesian nationals who were subject to an Indonesian Red Notice and filed a case at the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA).
Details about this case are scant: it has appeared only in a footnote in Interpol’s audited financial report for 2015. But it appears that, rather than allow the case to proceed and risk a defeat that could cost it millions of euros, Interpol paid legal fees and compensation in return for an agreement to settle or dismiss the case. Interpol then negotiated the 2016 removal of “disputes regarding the processing of data in Interpol’s Information System” from its headquarters agreement with France, preventing future lawsuits similar to the “Settlement” from going to the PCA.
The ”Settlement” did not occur in a vacuum. Interpol had adopted its Rules on the Processing of Data (RPD) in 2012 and was already engaged in a wider post-9/11 modernization begun Under Secretary-General Ron Noble of the United States, who served from 2000 to 2014. Moreover, the EU Charter had become binding on Dec. 1, 2009, with the Treaty of Lisbon, and Interpol would have had to adapt to it at some point. Finally, at the time of the “Settlement,” Interpol was under substantial pressure from – among others – Anglo-American investor William Browder (now Sir William Browder), who published his best-selling book Red Notice in February 2015 detailing Russia’s efforts to harass him through Interpol.
But the “Settlement,” with the associated changes to the headquarters agreement, was followed at Interpol by far-reaching reforms aimed at improving Interpol’s data handling, data protection, and its screening and remedial procedures for Red Notices and diffusions — precisely the areas that exposed Interpol to the greatest legal risk. This risk existed because even after the revision of the headquarters agreement, Interpol remained vulnerable to judicial review on several fronts, including the right to privacy (as set out in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU (Charter) (Articles 7 and 8) and the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) (Article 8)) and the requirement (stemming in particular from Article 47 of the Charter and ECHR Article 13) that individuals must have access to an effective legal remedy for abuses. This remedy must – among other requirements – be accessible, competent, independent, prompt, and grant appropriate relief.
All of Interpol’s post-2015 reforms sought to improve Interpol’s compliance with EU and European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) law – while at the same time, Interpol used these reforms to publicly signal that it was indeed complying. In 2016, for example, an additional mechanism for curbing illegitimate use of Interpol, the organization created the Notices and Diffusions Task Force (NDTF).
The NDTF acts as the first line of review. It is responsible for screening requests for Red Notices and, after transmission, Wanted Person Diffusions. While Interpol notes that “member countries are primarily responsible for ensuring their requests comply with Interpol rules, national laws and international obligations,” it describes the NDTF process as constituting a “robust quality and legal compliance review” that upholds the value of notices and diffusions by “safeguarding the data rights of the individuals concerned.” By formalizing Interpol’s review process, the NDTF offers a layer of protection against the publication of faulty or abusive data. It also allows Interpol to signal its compliance to potential litigants and to its own member states.
In 2016, the Interpol General Assembly also adopted the Statute of the Commission for the Control of INTERPOL’s Files (CCF), which continues, with amendments, to govern the CCF today. Unlike NDTF, which is supposed to catch faulty requests for police cooperation before they are published, the CCF acts as a safety net for reviewing and in some cases, deleting data, after it has been disseminated. Interpol notes that it established the CCF’s predecessor “shortly after the conclusion of Convention 108 of the Council of Europe” which protects the right to privacy and came into being in 1981. In 2016, the former Chair of the CCF explained at the General Assembly at which the Statute was adopted that “If an applicant is not provided with an effective remedy, INTERPOL might be exposed to challenges to its immunity from potential lawsuits brought before national jurisdictions.”
Many of the changes to the CCF adopted in the Statute go directly to addressing European law’s requirements for an effective remedy in individual circumstances. The CCF is accessible: it does not charge for access and does not require that submissions be made by an attorney. Unlike its predecessor, it is competent: its decisions must be implemented by Interpol’s General Secretariat. Also unlike its predecessor, the CCF is independent: as Interpol is at pains to observe, the Statute contains “specific rules aimed at reinforcing/guaranteeing the respect of the independence and impartiality of the Commission and its members.” It is (or at least it is supposed to be) prompt: though the CCF suffers from notorious delays that deeply impact its ability in practice to afford prompt relief, the Statute does at least contain specific requirements for the time-frame of CCF decisions. Finally, the CCF can grant relief by deleting abusive Red Notices – though as it does not grant monetary compensation for abuse, it is debatable if this relief is appropriate as that concept is defined under European law.
In short, within a year after the “Settlement,” Interpol comprehensively reformed the entire process for reviewing, publishing, and policing the Red Notice system, as well as its headquarters agreement. These reforms appear to be a legal risk management strategy aimed at reducing the ability of victims of Interpol abuse to challenge it – and win damages from it – in European courts. Not only did Interpol as an organization change after the Settlement, but it justified those changes in terms that sought to demonstrate Interpol’s compliance with EU law and the ECHR, or, on occasion, to put the blame for non-compliance on Interpol’s member nations.
The timing of the reforms, and the justifications that Interpol offers for them, strongly suggest that, if the Settlement did not create the impetus for Interpol to act, it encouraged Interpol to pursue reforms that would reduce its legal vulnerability, which had just been demonstrated under the old headquarters agreement. As the Interpol General Assembly put it in the resolution adopted in November 2016 that revised the RPD and adopted the CCF Statute, it was mindful of “the need for INTERPOL’s rules to clearly reflect the responsibilities of each entity involved in the processing of data in the INTERPOL Information System” as well as the “importance of ensuring that the processing of data in the INTERPOL Information System complies with . . . the principles of international law.”
Interpol’s Answer: The CCF, With Emphasis on European Human Rights Standards
While Interpol speaks in general terms of “international law,” it seems clear that – apart from the international law aspect of its requirement under Article 2(1) of its Constitution to operate “in the spirit of” the Universal Declaration of Human Rights – it is most concerned about its legal vulnerability in Europe. As Interpol puts it, with emphasis in the original, “the CCF Statute ensures that the CCF can provide an effective remedy to individuals, based on the principles identified in jurisprudence, notably that of the European Court of Human Rights.”
Interpol follows up this declaration with a lengthy list of effective remedy criteria that the CCF purportedly meets under the 2016 Statute. Its FAQ on its “Personal Data Safeguards” takes a similar approach, making the case at considerable length that Interpol’s data privacy and retention practices are effective and “in line with evolving international data protection standards.” In both documents, the CCF does most of the heavy lifting, for the likely reason that the CCF is the only plausibly independent body in Interpol.
Of course, Interpol’s claims that it complies with European law may or may not be true. But Interpol speaks to many audiences. On the one hand, the reforms it has made since 2015 have genuinely improved its ability to screen data and to review notices. While these reforms have not fixed all the issues with Interpol, it is clearly a positive development that Interpol has changed. But as its claim about compliance with European law demonstrates, Interpol needs to emphasize its own compliance – both to potential litigants and, at least as importantly, to its own member states.
Interpol is a worldwide organization. Many of its member states are not in Europe and are not aware of the subtleties of European law – and some member states (Russia being the obvious but not the only example) do not care about European law. So, while it is important for Interpol to comply with European law, it is also important for it – both to discourage lawsuits and to keep its member states on board with a reform agenda – to put rhetorical emphasis on its own compliance.
Indeed, the more you look, the more statements by Interpol celebrating its own compliance you will find. A few examples illustrate the point:
- 2016 press release after the meeting of the General Assembly in Bali: “The Statute also provides for the CCF’s decisions to be binding and final on the General Secretariat and the establishment of a clear timetable for their review process and procedures to provide an effective remedy for individuals with regard to data which may be processed about them in the INTERPOL information system.”
- Then-Interpol Secretary General Jürgen Stock’s statement at the 2024 General Assembly meeting in Glasgow, Scotland: “Equally, the Commission for the Control of INTERPOL’s Files plays a critical role in ensuring the integrity of our systems and protecting individual rights in our data processing. It also provides protection to us. Its independence allows it to be recognized as an effective legal remedy.”
These declarations are not aimed merely at victims of Interpol abuse looking to sue it. Interpol is also talking to its member nations – not all of whom want the CCF to be effective, independent, or both. While Interpol is constitutionally bound to remain politically neutral, it is not devoid of internal politics.
The CCF’s own annual reports illustrate this dual agenda of Interpol’s claims that it complies with European law, claims aimed at Interpol’s victims as well as its member nations. The reports regularly emphasize that the point of the CCF Statute, and of the CCF, is to bring Interpol into compliance with European law. To quote a single example from the 2024 Annual Report:
“Initially established in response to developments in data-protection law in its host country, France, and designed to ensure that INTERPOL retained its independence and oversight over data processed within the INTERPOL Information System (IIS) according to INTERPOL’s rules, the CCF has developed over the past four decades to reflect both the key role of data in INTERPOL’s work and the growing recognition of data-protection rights in the international legal order. . . . In multiple instances over the years, the CCF has been found by national courts of various countries to constitute an effective remedy, which has allowed INTERPOL to maintain its immunity from such national courts.”
In a written response to a question from one of us (Bromund), an Interpol spokesperson on Feb. 18, 2026, expanded on the 2024 annual report’s statement that “national courts” have found the CCF to “constitute an effective remedy”:
We can confirm that various courts and tribunals (including arbitral institutions), when assessing INTERPOL’s status as an international organization and the immunities it enjoys, addressed the role of the CCF in providing a remedy to individuals. Whilst in such decisions the court or tribunal may have articulated its findings on the CCF using different terminology, such decisions affirm the role of the CCF and its ability to provide the equivalent of an alternative or effective remedy. Some examples of these cases include a decision from an Israeli court rendered in 2009, an arbitration case from 2018, a Belgium case from 2020, and a case before US courts decided in 2021-2022.
Having received this statement in the course of our research, the current authors are not yet in a position to assess its accuracy. But it is clearly important to Interpol (and the CCF itself) to claim that the CCF is a body that enjoys broad legitimacy. Again, this argument is directed at Interpol’s member nations as well as victims of Interpol abuse. The need the CCF evidently feels to defend itself from some of Interpol’s member nations is illustrated by the CCF’s 2024 report, which comments that “In evaluating potential amendments to the [CCF] Statute, it will be crucial to ensure that the CCF’s core mandate, to act as an independent body that serves as an effective remedy and protects INTERPOL’s powerful tools from abuse, is maintained.” The CCF is evidently concerned that Interpol member nations that would prefer it to stop being an “effective remedy” will revise the CCF Statute into ineffectiveness.
The word “maintained” in the CCF’s 2024 report asserts Interpol and the CCF’s traditional confidence that the system is working as intended to protect Interpol from European courts, individuals from abuse, or both. But from time to time, the CCF reminds the General Assembly, and the National Central Bureaus (NCBs) that make up the General Assembly, that the task of ensuring Interpol’s compliance with European law is not done – or even that the Interpol system is at risk of slipping even further from compliance.
- 2021 report: “the Commission took various actions towards the parties to fight against restrictions to the communication of data that were either not motivated and/or not adequately justified. It paid particular attention to the possible gaps between restrictions imposed by some NCBs and rules in place in some regions, that may create an increased risk for litigations.”
- 2024 report: “In 2024, 70 per cent of access requests took more than four months to complete and 30 per cent of deletion requests took more than nine months. The delays are problematic for applicants, for NCBs and for INTERPOL itself.”
The “increased risk for litigations” stemming from the “rules in place in some regions” is almost certainly a reference to Europe, as are the delays that are “problematic” “for INTERPOL itself.”
In short, Interpol’s legal immunity in the United States appears to be ironclad. The only thing that could change this would be presidential withdrawal of part or all of Interpol’s IOIA immunities. In Europe – meaning those areas under the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice and/or the ECtHR – the situation is less clear. Since 2015 and the conclusion of the Settlement case, Interpol has avowedly sought to reduce its legal exposure by improving its data protection measures and establishing the CCF as an “effective remedy.”
So far, this strategy has worked – but not all of Interpol’s member nations accept it is desirable or necessary, and aspects of the system (in particular, the CCF’s delays) continue to expose Interpol to legal risks in Europe. The only way to close off these risks permanently is, in effect, to replicate Interpol’s IOIA immunities in Europe and around the world. That is exactly the kind of uneven litigation risk a multilateral immunities agreement such as the one recently adopted in Marrakesh is meant to address.
Potential Complete Protection for Interpol from Accountability
This is the context in which Interpol’s General Assembly adopted the Marrakesh General Agreement in November 2025, opening for signature and ratification a new General Agreement on the Privileges and Immunities of Interpol. Under its Article 20, the General Agreement will enter into force 30 days after the fifth instrument of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession is deposited. Eleven countries – Austria, Chile, Ecuador, Ghana, Lebanon, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Nicaragua, Palau, and Serbia – signed the General Agreement at the General Assembly on Nov. 27, 2025. Two further countries — Andorra and Spain — have signed since the General Assembly. An Interpol spokesperson confirmed to Bromund that, as of June 19, 2026, “No instruments of ratification have been deposited thus far.” Updates about the General Agreement’s status will be posted to Interpol’s “Privileges & Immunities” page.
Much of the General Agreement is not particularly controversial. It gives Interpol a legal personality (Article 3), protects its archives and official correspondence (Article 5), grants it financial facilities (Article 6) and tax exemption (Article 7), and gives various categories of people associated with it diplomatic immunity under particular circumstances, such as representatives of member countries traveling on Interpol business (Articles 8-11). The heart of the General Agreement is in Article 4 and Articles 14-16.
Stripping away the institutional language, the General Agreement aims to solve a simple problem for Interpol: how to operate everywhere without being dragged into court anywhere. That is why Article 4 grants immunity from “judicial and other forms of legal process” with only three carve-outs: an express waiver by Interpol (Article 4(1)(a)), the enforcement of an award under the contract dispute mechanism in General Agreement Article 15(a) contained in Article 4(1)(b), and a limited category of motor-vehicle accident claims (Article 4(1)(c)). None of those carve-outs is aimed at the scenario that most often causes harm, namely a person affected by an abusive or erroneous Red Notice or diffusion.
Article 15 requires Interpol to “take appropriate measures to ensure the satisfactory settlement of disputes.” But this requirement is again limited to three areas: disputes about commercial contracts to which Interpol is a party, which must be settled by mandatory arbitration (Article 15(a)); disputes between Interpol and its staff, which must be referred to the Administrative Tribunal of the International Labour Organization (Article 15(c)); and, most crucially, disputes “concerning data processing in the INTERPOL Information System” (Article 15(b)). This is the key provision in the entire General Agreement: it routes disputes about Red Notices and other data processing to the CCF. So, under the terms of the General Agreement, “satisfactory settlement of disputes” about Interpol means only mandatory reference to the CCF.
The General Agreement is clear that only a limited category of outcomes can be enforced in national courts. Article 4(1)(b) permits enforcement of an “award” only for disputes under Article 15(a), the contract arbitration track. There is no equivalent enforcement language for Article 15(b), about disputes on data processing.
In practice, this creates two tracks: contractual counterparties can arbitrate and enforce the result, while individuals affected by Interpol data can seek correction or deletion of Interpol-held data through the CCF but are not placed on a route with a court-enforceable damages award. Nor is the CCF itself allowed to assess liability or compensate losses that flow from actions taken as a result of Interpol’s records. CCF relief is anchored and limited to the record and does not compensate for downstream harm caused by the record. It cannot offer an “award” comparable to disputes under Article 15(a).
Nor does Article 14 of the General Agreement create a path to holding Interpol to account for its data processing. Under Article 14(1), the Secretary General is obligated to waive the immunity in a case where it would impede the course of justice and can be waived without prejudice to the interests of the organization (Article 14(1)). But Article 14(1) begins as follows:
Privileges and immunities are granted under this Agreement in the interests of the ICPO-INTERPOL and not for the personal benefit of the individuals themselves. The Secretary General shall have the right and duty to waive the immunity of any Official of the ICPO-INTERPOL . . .”
In other words, the waiver of immunity is intended to cover cases in which an Interpol official commits an ordinary law offense. It is not intended to be used to waive Interpol’s immunity as an organization from lawsuits related to its processing of data.
Finally, General Agreement Article 16, “Settlement of disputes with States Parties,” requires that any dispute between Interpol and a member state, or between two member states, about the General Agreement itself – and only about the General Agreement – be settled by a final and binding arbitration in accordance with the Permanent Court of Arbitration’s “Optional Rules for Arbitration involving International Organizations and States.” The “Optional Rules” require (Article 33(1)) that:
In resolving the dispute, the arbitral tribunal shall apply the rules of the organization concerned and the law applicable to any agreement or relationship between the parties, and, where appropriate, the general principles governing the law of international organizations and the rules of general international law.
In other words, the PCA tribunal must begin by applying Interpol’s rules to resolving the dispute – and Interpol’s rules channel disputes about data into the CCF, or, ultimately, into a process set out in Article 135 of Interpol’s Rules on the Processing of Data.
Outside the General Agreement and beyond the CCF, Interpol has a member state-driven mechanism for disputes over data: the RPD Article 135 settlement-of-disputes procedure. Article 135 is Interpol’s channel for disputes between National Central Bureaus (and, in some situations, between an NCB or an international entity such as the ICC and the General Secretariat) about whether data recorded in Interpol’s systems comply with Interpol’s rules.
The prior version of Article 135 was based on consultation between the parties first, followed by escalation to the Executive Committee and, if necessary, the General Assembly. But revisions in 2024 changed the character of the mechanism by creating a codified internal process, with admissibility screening, structured consultations, and a final compliance decision that can be reviewed up the chain to the Secretary General.
Crucially for people who are hurt by Interpol abuse, none of this is designed as an individual remedy. Access is limited to NCBs and certain international entities; individuals have no standing to trigger Article 135 directly. A data subject will need a state to take up their fight to even hope to achieve redress under Article 135.
But it is incredibly uncommon for states to take disputes about Red Notices through the dispute settlement process – the only such case we are aware of is the one involving former Kazakh Prime Minister Akezhan Kazhegeldin, where a lengthy dispute over a Red Notice ended when the General Assembly authorized the notice by a vote in 2002. It is implausible to see General Agreement Article 16 leading, through the General Assembly, to substantial individual redress in cases of abuse.
In commenting on the General Agreement, English barristers Stephen Bailey and Courtney Grafton have argued that “several provisions in the agreement . . . dampen the broad immunity in Article 4(1).” True, Interpol’s immunity under the General Agreement is not absolute. But none of the carve-outs reduce the immunity afforded to disputes over Interpol’s information processing, which are directed solely into the CCF.
The General Agreement does not give Interpol absolute immunity. But none of the limitations on Interpol’s immunity in the General Agreement touch substantially on the only reason Interpol is of significant interest to public policy: its information processing and the abuses of it. Arbitration for commercial or staff contracting disputes, waiving immunity for Interpol officials who commit ordinary law crimes or punishing Interpol officials who cause traffic accidents are all well and good, but those are not the major policy and legal concerns confronting Interpol.
The practical consequences of the General Agreement are evident. It raises a barrier to suing Interpol in domestic courts, limits enforceable monetary awards to contractual counterparties, and channels data-processing disputes into the internal CCF mechanism designed to correct files, not compensate losses. For individuals, the “remedy” for abuse is prospective and administrative: the most realistic outcome is confirmation that, as of a particular date, there is no Red Notice in Interpol’s system. It does not provide damages, it does not undo past harm, and it offers no assurance that a Red Notice will not name them in the future.
Risk to Momentum for Interpol Reform
In their assessment of the General Agreement, Grafton and Bailey make a significant point. As we have sought to demonstrate, Interpol has devoted considerable effort — both substantially and rhetorically — since the Red Notice settlement case towards proving that the CCF is an “effective remedy.” But as Grafton and Bailey note:
if these fora [the ILO for staff disputes, the PCA for disputes between states, and arbitration for commercial disputes] do not provide an effective remedy for all disputes, an appropriate balance may be lacking, which could impact INTERPOL’s immunity. . . . if the CCF does not provide an effective remedy because of structural or procedural deficiencies, then INTERPOL’s immunity could be set aside in any given case. Domestic courts may do so to discharge the relevant State’s human rights obligation to provide a reasonable alternative means to protect effectively a person’s rights within its jurisdiction and/or to prevent a denial of justice in breach of public policy in that State.
That is certainly true. But by signing the General Agreement, nations are implicitly accepting the CCF as an “effective remedy.” That will not prevent courts in Europe from determining that the CCF is not effective – but it creates a further presumption in Interpol’s favor. If all 196 Interpol member nations sign the General Agreement, give Interpol near-complete immunity for its information processing, and implicitly conclude that the CCF works, that surely raises the bar substantially for lawsuits against Interpol’s data processing.
Bailey and Grafton conclude that ‘In sum, the Agreement is a sensible next step for the Organization. But broad immunities must not operate as a shield from accountability.” The General Agreement is undeniably a logical culmination of the efforts to reduce its legal vulnerability that Interpol has pursued since 2016.
But there is a broader issue. This is not a simple dispute with Interpol on one side and a collection of angry victims of Interpol abuse and their attorneys on the other. There are people and nations inside Interpol who believe in the organization – and who, precisely because of that, believe it needs reform. Unfortunately, there are also nations in Interpol who are uninterested in, or opposed to, reforms. The threat of European lawsuits has been central to all the major reforms in Interpol since 2015. To the extent that the General Agreement reduces the threat of lawsuits – and that is precisely what it is intended to do – it reduces the leverage of individuals and nations inside (and outside) Interpol who believe it needs further reform.
And there is little doubt that Interpol needs further reforms. Apart from the weaknesses that remain in the Interpol system as it is today, the striking thing about Interpol abuse, as Bromund observed in a 2025 report for New Lines Institute, is “how fast the problem arose, how quickly the abusers learn from each other, and how speedily they adapt to find new ways to manipulate the system.” Because it is facing a determined and intelligent array of abusers, Interpol will never be able to rest on its laurels.
Interpol was and is understandably concerned about its legal vulnerability. But the biggest threat to Interpol is not lawsuits. The biggest threat is that an inadequately reformed Interpol becomes involved in abuse so discrediting that it loses public support, democratic confidence and funding, or both. Like bad press coverage, the prospect of lawsuits is obviously unappealing – but accurate press coverage of serious abuse (like the possibility of lawsuits) are tools to prevent the problem of abuse from becoming so bad it discredits the organization.
There is an excellent recent example of this phenomenon. In early 2024, the New York Times published a well-sourced story that centered on the abuse of Interpol’s Blue Notices. Later that year, Interpol announced that Blue Notices would henceforth be subject to the same kind of screening as Red Notices. That does not entirely fix the problem, but it is an improvement – and it is unlikely that Interpol would have overcome the internal resistance to making this improvement were it not for unfavorable and accurate press coverage. The question is not merely, as Bailey and Grafton put it, whether the General Agreement is “unfair vis-à-vis third parties.” It is whether the General Agreement will change the political balance inside Interpol.
The General Agreement thus should not be viewed solely from a legal perspective. It will reduce the legal pressures that have avowedly led Interpol to reform in the past and will thereby tend to politically disempower reformers inside Interpol. We therefore believe that Interpol’s member nations should decline to sign the General Agreement – and signal that refusal publicly.
From the perspective of potential litigants in the United States, signing would add nothing to Interpol’s existing IOIA immunities. But the U.S. interest goes beyond domestic litigation: signing the General Agreement would signal that the United States accepts the CCF as an effective remedy and endorses the reduction of external legal accountability that Interpol has pursued since 2015. The right course is to preserve the existing architecture of accountability – imperfect as it is – rather than lend legitimacy to an agreement that will reduce Interpol’s impetus to reform and raise further barriers for those seeking genuine redress for Interpol abuse worldwide.
