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A full chapter of our book INTERPOL Law and Practice is organised around the questions clients ask. Here are five of the most common, with the short version of each answer.
How do I find out whether a notice exists?
There is no reliable way to rule one out. Interpol’s public database shows fewer than 10 per cent of active Red Notices, so a clean search means very little. A formal data access request can be made to the CCF, although Interpol may decline to confirm or deny that any data exists, and the shape of its reply can itself be telling. Enquiries can also be routed through the local National Central Bureau, and in some countries domestic lawyers can get the answer through national channels far more quickly. Clients with lawyers, family or contacts in the state concerned often learn more that way than from any formal request. Many simply find out when they are stopped.
Should I travel while I wait?
Deliberately testing the position at a border can be a bad idea. Some countries will arrest rather than inform and release. Travel risk has to be assessed country by country – the book devotes a section to how key jurisdictions treat Red Notices in practice, because the variation is striking. Until the position is known, the cautious working assumption is that a stop is possible anywhere that takes notices seriously.
How long will the CCF take?
The stated timescales are four months for access requests and nine for deletion requests. Reality is slower. In 2024 roughly 70 per cent of access requests ran past four months, and 30 per cent of deletion requests past nine. Resolution arrives after months and years, not days and weeks. And silence tells you nothing, either way, about what data is held.
Do I get to argue my innocence?
No, and we routinely make it clear to our clients that this is not the forum to argue the underlying case. The CCF does not retry the domestic case and does not decide guilt. It asks a single question: does the data held in Interpol’s systems comply with Interpol’s rules? Submissions that spend their pages protesting innocence, or denouncing the requesting state in general terms, fail before they start.
The book distils years of CCF litigation into a handful of working principles. Aim every argument at the specific rule said to be breached. Treat the first submission as the only real chance, because the review that follows a refusal is narrow. Coordinate the CCF application with any extradition, asylum or civil proceedings, since a finding in one forum is often the best evidence in another. And be honest about which cases are worth bringing at all.
If the CCF refuses, can I appeal?
There is no appeal. What exists is a request for revision under Article 42 of the CCF Statute, available only where a newly discovered fact could have led the Commission to a different conclusion, and only within six months of its discovery. Under the CCF’s new portal procedure the first step is a two-page summary of the new facts; a fuller document, capped at ten pages, may follow if the Commission invites one. The lack of an appeal process makes it ever more important that the original submission filed must be the best available version of the case.
These answers are condensed from INTERPOL Law and Practice by this site’s editors, Rhys Davies and Ben Keith, which covers CCF applications, procedure and risk in full, with model documents. Published by Thomson Reuters on 23 September 2026; pre-order from Sweet & Maxwell.
