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Article 3 of INTERPOL’s Constitution decides most contested Red Notice cases. It provides that ‘it is strictly forbidden for the Organisation to undertake any intervention or activities of a political, military, religious or racial character’. No state seeking to weaponise a Red Notice describes its case as political, so the indictment says fraud, or tax evasion, while the reality may be that the defendant founded an opposition party, fell out with a minister, or owned something a better-connected rival wanted. Ben Keith and Rhys Davies work through INTERPOL’s answer to that problem in INTERPOL Law and Practice, published by Thomson Reuters on 23 September 2026.
INTERPOL’s predominance test weighs the political elements of a case against its ordinary criminal elements, and the request fails where the political side predominates. The test is older than most practitioners assume. It dates to a General Assembly resolution of 1951 and applies to what INTERPOL treats as relative offences, those mixing political conduct with ordinary criminal conduct. It bites even where the charge is a seemingly ordinary crime under the requesting state’s domestic law. What counts as ordinary law at home may still be political in substance under INTERPOL’s rules, and that gap is where most successful applications are built.
Article 34(3) of INTERPOL’s Rules on the Processing of Data supplies the framework for the balancing exercise. It obliges INTERPOL to consider all relevant elements: the nature of the offence and the facts beneath the charges, the status of the person concerned, the identity of the source of the data, the position taken by other National Central Bureaus or international bodies, obligations under international law, the implications for INTERPOL’s neutrality, and the general context of the case. No factor outranks the others.
For practitioners the provision is a gateway. Country reports, NGO findings and expert evidence all enter through it. INTERPOL Law and Practice works through the anonymised decisions of the Commission for the Control of INTERPOL’s Files and INTERPOL’s own Repository of Practice to show how the assessment runs in the situations that recur: fraud allegations against an opposition politician, business disputes with senior officials of the requesting state, corruption charges that follow a falling-out.
INTERPOL’s test is broader than the standard the European Court of Human Rights applies to claims of political motivation. In Khodorkovskiy v Russia (App No 5829/04, 31 May 2011) the Strasbourg Court had substantial material before it on the political context of the prosecution, yet held that the evidence fell short of showing that Russia’s legal machinery had been misused in bad faith. It observed that ‘it is often much easier for a politician to take a stand than for a judge’. Strasbourg demands proof that political purposes tainted the proceedings themselves. INTERPOL’s test permits a wider look at the political elements of the case.
The practical consequence is counter-intuitive. On the political question the CCF can be a more receptive forum than a human rights court, provided the submission is built to INTERPOL’s framework rather than Strasbourg’s.
We act for individuals subject to Red Notices and Diffusions and prepare applications to the CCF founded on Article 3. The arguments that succeed are addressed to INTERPOL’s own rules, with the evidence organised around the Article 34(3) factors, never generalised pleas about injustice. Where no notice has yet issued, a pre-emptive request can put the political character of the case before INTERPOL before a request is ever acted on.
The political character of a case lies in the facts beneath the charge. The label on the indictment settles nothing.
INTERPOL Law and Practice by Ben Keith and Rhys Davies is published by Thomson Reuters on 23 September 2026 and can be pre-ordered from Sweet & Maxwell.
If you believe a Red Notice or Diffusion against you is political in character, contact us in confidence.
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