What to Expect from INTERPOL’s 2025 General Assembly in Morocco

INTERPOL’s General Assembly (GA), its supreme authority, will hold its annual meeting in Marrakech, Morocco on November 24-27, 2025. The fact that so much of INTERPOL’s leadership is elected on three to five year cycles means that most GA meetings have the potential to reshape the organization and alter its course. That is certainly true of the 2025 meeting.

The GA represents all INTERPOL member nations, and, with the exception of nations barred from voting for persistent failure to pay their dues, is organized on a one-nation one-vote basis. The GA is responsible, among other duties, for electing INTERPOL’s president, who serves a non-renewable four year term, and its Executive Committee (EC), chaired by the president, whose members serve non-renewable three year terms.

The EC is organized on a geographically representative basis, with Europe holding four seats and Asia, Africa, and the Americas each holding three. The three Vice-Presidents and the President must each come from a different region. The EC normally determines the agenda of the GA, screens candidates for INTERPOL offices, and supervises INTERPOL’s implementation of GA decisions, so while it is a subsidiary body, it is an extremely powerful one. It is rare indeed for the GA to reject a conclusion recommended by the EC.

The headline event at the 2025 GA meeting will be the elections to select a new INTERPOL President, a new Vice-President for Asia, at least one EC member for Africa, and possibly – depending on the results of the other elections – a Vice-Present for Europe or an EC member for Africa, Europe, or Asia. The EC’s system of regional distribution makes the permutations complicated, but the bottom line is that there are 4 vacancies on the EC to be filled, and one of them is INTERPOL’s presidency.

Commendably, INTERPOL has this year published, more than three weeks in advance of the GA meeting, the full slate of candidates for all vacant EC positions. This is a notable and welcome improvement on past practice, when candidates were not formally announced and external observers only found out about candidates who chose to announce themselves.

The three candidates for Vice-President of Asia are from South Korea, Japan, and the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The candidacy of Mr. Wang Yong from the PRC – who already sits on the EC, and who is therefore the likely frontrunner – is particularly interesting, as it marks another step in the PRC’s campaign to recover from the debacle of 2018, when then-INTERPOL President Meng Hongwei of the PRC was recalled to Beijing and arrested as part of what appears to have been a leadership struggle within the Chinese Communist Party.

This episode, as embarrassing to INTERPOL as it was – or should have been – to the PRC, might well have led many of INTERPOL’s member nations to doubt the wisdom of electing senior PRC figures to positions in INTERPOL’s leadership. But the PRC has worked hard over the past 7 years to erase that impression. Mr. Wang was elected to the EC in 2024, and now bids fair to win one of its Vice-Presidential seats – notwithstanding the fact that, as head of the PRC’s National Central Bureau, responsible for all liaison between the PRC and INTERPOL, he is personally responsible for the PRC’s well-attested abuse of the INTERPOL system.

But without doubt, the election of INTERPOL’s President will draw the most comment and concern. Four candidates are standing – Ms. Anne-Marie Nainda of Namibia, Mr. Demelash Gebremicheal Weldeyes of Ethiopia, Mr. Lucas Philippe of France, and Mr. Mustafa Serkan Sabanca of Turkey. Three of these candidates – Ms. Nainda, Mr. Philippe, and Mr. Sabanca – are already EC members, and while nothing can be ruled out, it is hard to see how Mr. Weldeyes can overcome the disadvantage of not already being part of INTERPOL’s inner circle, as well as a potential split of the African vote with Ms. Nainda. His candidacy appears more likely to damage Ms. Nainda’s prospects – and vice versa – than anything else.

It therefore seems likely that either Mr. Philippe or Mr. Sabanca will be the winner. With both of these candidates hailing from the European region, the lobbying for votes within (and outside of) Europe will be intense. This is particularly true because like Mr. Wang, Mr. Sabanca is the head of his nation’s National Central Bureau – and because, like Mr. Wang’s PRC, the track record of Mr. Sabanca’s Turkey in INTERPOL is remarkably poor.

Indeed, the PRC and Turkey differ primarily in the sophistication of their abuse of the INTERPOL system to pursue opponents – real or imagined – of their regimes. While the PRC’s abuse is well-known to those who focus on the Uyghur community, and while it has regularly been called out by U.S. officials y European politicians alike, the fact remains that the PRC’s wider campaign of transnational repression is subtle and does not rest solely on INTERPOL.

Turkey’s abuse, by contrast, has been so blatant that INTERPOL itself was compelled to respond. In the wake of the purported 2016 coup attempt against Turkish President Erdoğan, Turkey apparently tried to publish so many Red Notices – tens of thousands – against so-called Gülenists (whom the Turkish authorities describe as terrorists) that INTERPOL reportedly rejected most if not all of Turkey’s requests and began to cast a wary eye on further Turkish requests. Turkey responded by continuing to try to abuse the Red Notice system and by expanding into abuse of INTERPOL’s Stolen and Lost Travel Documents database – abuse that in one notorious case reached former National Basketball Association star Enes Kanter Freedom.

Since then, Turkish authorities have complained regularly and loudly about the fact that INTERPOL rejected many of its Red Notice requests. As the Turkish Justice Minister himself put it on July 15, 2025, “We requested 3,579 red notices from Interpol for members of the Gülen Movement. . . . . Unfortunately, we regret to see that Interpol has not taken our red notice requests into consideration, as if they were political criminals.” Leaked documents have revealed that Turkey’s strategy for combatting INTERPOL’s refusal to play ball is to try to deceive INTERPOL by accusing its supposed enemies of crimes that do not sound political.

Thus, while the PRC is likely the most successful abuser of INTERPOL, Turkey has over the past 10 years almost certainly tried to commit the greatest volume of INTERPOL abuse – abuse that continues to this day. All this abuse, by definition, flows through its National Central Bureau, headed by Mr. Sabanca. It would be remarkable if Mr. Sabanca did not – at a minimum – know all about Turkey’s efforts to break INTERPOL’s rules and to conceal this rule-breaking. He is in any event personally responsible for it. And now, he is a leading candidate to serve as INTERPOL’s next president.

It is important to remember that INTERPOL’s rules are not only – perhaps not even primarily – about protecting individuals from abuse through INTERPOL’s Red Notices or its other channels. The rules exist mostly to protect INTERPOL itself – partly from the potential ire of its democratic funders, and partly from lawsuits filed by victims of abuse. Suing INTERPOL is not easy, but it is also not impossible. INTERPOL’s own publications reveal that it is indeed concerned about its legal vulnerability – and that many of the reforms it has instituted over the past ten years have been driven in part by its desire to reduce that vulnerability. Electing a President who had done his level best to increase that vulnerability would be foolhardy.

The power of the INTERPOL President can be exaggerated. The President cannot cause INTERPOL to publish or reject a Red Notice, or interfere in other operational matters. The President is more the chairman of the board – the EC – than a chief executive. Yet the President does have a vote on the EC, chairs its meetings, and directs its discussion. That is power enough. And to an extent, the Presidency is what the holder of the office makes of it. An ambitious and publicity-seeking President, like Major General Al-Raisi of the UAE, himself an enormously controversial figure, can reputation-wash his home nation by appearing to embody INTERPOL in the eyes of the world.

Moreover, precisely because every INTERPOL member nation has a single vote in the election of the President, the election offers a moment to take the collective temperature of the organization: if a majority of INTERPOL member nations – or even a significant minority – are willing to vote for a candidate with direct personality responsibility for systemic abuse of the INTERPOL system, then we will know that many nations in INTERPOL care little for its rules.

While the INTERPOL elections will likely attract much of the press coverage, the elections will not be the only important matter up for decision at the GA meeting. The GA will also very likely debate a new General Agreement on the Privileges and Immunities of INTERPOL.

It would be surprising if the GA does not approve this General Agreement, as it has been considering the subject since 2022, and as it backed the creation of a drafting committee at the last GA meeting in 2024. Assuming the GA votes the General Agreement through, it will go to member countries for them to adopt via their national processes.

External observers know nothing about the contents of the General Agreement. It is normal for a country that hosts the General Assembly to adopt an immunity agreement before the meeting, and as a condition of hosting it – the U.K. did so before the Glasgow GA meeting in 2024. But it seems likely that proposed General Agreement will be broader – perhaps along the lines of the U.S.’s International Organization Immunities Act, which makes it all but impossible, with narrow exceptions, to successfully sue INTERPOL in the United States.

It is hard not to see this General Agreement as a reflection of the legal risks that INTERPOL faces, and which are regularly pointed in out in various INTERPOL documents. For example, INTERPOL’s most recent (2023) financial report notes that it “is dependent on its member countries for the input of notices and data to its databases. . . . The Organization is exposed to risks in the quality of data and implementation of new data-handling standards.”

It would be premature to comment on the General Agreement before seeing it – though it is a sign of INTERPOL’s limited transparency that the General Agreement is not publicly available. That said, since INTERPOL’s concern about losing lawsuits has driven it to make important changes such as the creation of the Notices and Diffusions Task Force, it is fair to be concerned at the effect that a widespread grant of legal immunity to INTERPOL through the General Agreement would have on INTERPOL’s desire to enact further reforms.

The GA will also – as usual – have to review and approve INTERPOL’s budget. At least as of 2023, this was not in a good place, as in that year, INTERPOL only made ends meet by spending 9.4 million Euros from its General Reserves. This is all the more concerning as 2023’s budget reflected the second straight year of increases in INTERPOL’s mandatory dues that were agreed in 2021. The primary cause of INTERPOL’s deficit was the considerable increase in its expenses – up by over 28 million Euros in a year. Some of this deficit derived from depreciation adjustments and other non-recurring factors, but the considerably increased staff costs incurred by INTERPOL in 2023, plus an expensive lawsuit that INTERPOL lost on French sickness insurance contributions, are not mere accounting issues.

The INTERPOL deficit is troubling for three reasons. First, because there is nothing obvious that can be done in short order on the revenue side. 2024 will admittedly have brought in the final tranche of the 2021 dues increase, amounting to an addition 10 million Euros, but even that increase would barely have balanced the budget in 2023 – and costs will likely have increased again in 2024 and 2025. In a few years, the gulf between resources and spending could be vast. It seems unlikely that INTERPOL can secure another increase in mandatory dues so soon after the 2021 increase, and equally unlikely that INTERPOL Secretary-General Valdecy Urquiza will risk unpopularity with the nations that he will need to vote for him again in 2029 by campaigning for an increase early in his first term in office.

Moreover, until INTERPOL trims its bloated priorities, there is limited scope for substantial economies. Admittedly, INTERPOL has trouble saying no to bright and expensive new ideas, but INTERPOL’s member nations are also far better at telling INTERPOL to do more than they are at paying for what they demand. With INTERPOL spending heavily to improve its data analysis capabilities, and the opportunities and threats of AI looming, it is difficult to see how INTERPOL can balance its budget (never mind invest more in oversight of the notice system) over the medium term without trimming its program of activities, which means forcing the GA to face up to the reality of budgetary constraints.

Lastly, INTERPOL’s deficit is also worrying because it brings back temptations to which INTERPOL has in the past proven all too vulnerable. INTERPOL has a long and unfortunate history of trying to raise money from outside sources – ranging from private corporations (often with dubious reputations) to ethically-challenged international organizations (like FIFA) to donations from the UAE to the now nearly-defunct INTERPOL Foundation (donations that curiously ended just as Al-Raisi was elected to lead INTERPOL). Most of these expedients were belatedly recognized as bad and discrediting ideas, but their precedents remain.

In recent years, INTERPOL has moved away from these expedients. But it has become increasingly dependent on project funding by national governments – funding that enjoys a presumption of innocence that (rightly) does not apply to external funding from private sources. The result is doubly unfortunate – INTERPOL runs the risk of being pulled from project to project depending not on what is needed but on what can be funded, while at the same time, it has its agenda shaped by governments in ways that risk reflecting purely national (or even national political) priorities. INTERPOL’s need for more revenue creates the danger that it will again follow the road it has carelessly taken too many times in the past, that of being more interested in obtaining external funding than in understanding the agendas behind it.

Of course, the GA will also have to approve by publication of the annual accounts, its own Annual Report, and that of the Commission for the Control of INTERPOL’s Files (CCF), INTERPOL’s independent appellate body, all of which are always eagerly anticipated by INTERPOL watchers. Finally – though the GA will surely have even more on its agenda – external observers will be interested to see what, if anything, is reported back by INTERPOL’s various governance processes. The CCF has been undertaking a review of its Statute, in the course of which it has twice (to date) commendably sought public contributions. It is unlikely that this review will conclude in 2025, but it is reasonable to hope for an update.

More broadly, INTERPOL’s Working Group to Review Legal Provisions Relating to INTERPOL’s Governance Bodies was transformed in 2024 into a standing Committee on Governance – chaired, by a curious coincidence, by the UAE. The Committee at least in theory has a good deal of business before it, including a number of self-interested and destructive resolutions from Belarus and Russia dating back 2023. It might well be that these have blessedly been kicked into the long grass, but the Committee’s report will be interesting nonetheless.

The INTERPOL GA arrives with stories about INTERPOL abuse, and attempted abuse, making one of their regular resurgences – from PRC media threatening to use INTERPOL to arrest Taiwanese politicians in Europe, to UN experts calling out El Salvador for weaponizing the Red Notice system, to concerns that other African nations are following Rwanda’s bad example of INTERPOL abuse, to Sri Lanka threatening to use INTERPOL to secure the return of athletes who failed to return home after the Commonwealth Games of 2022, to Kyrgyzstan trying (and failing) to get a Red Notice against an independent journalist.

Importantly, only the El Salvador story clearly concerns actual abuse, not threats of abuse or failed abuse – and importantly too, INTERPOL rightly treated the Kyrgyzstan story so seriously that it took the rare step of publicly denying any Notice had been published. INTERPOL needs more of this kind of proactive press engagement: it does have good stories to tell, and as not every bad story about it is accurate, the truth can be its best defense. But the spate of abuse stories points out that INTERPOL is always only one screw-up away from having a bad day.

The past year has felt a bit like INTERPOL is marking time, with President Al-Raisi taking victory laps, Secretary General Urquiza seeming to fall somewhat into his shadow, hints of organizational deadlock, no effort to reign in INTERPOL’s innumerable priorities, the regular trumpeting of hard to differentiate operations, and obvious financial strains. The election of a new president will give the Secretary General an opportunity to assert himself and to address these challenges, if he wishes to do so.

But by the end of the 2025 GA, INTERPOL could have a Turkish President, a Chinese Vice President, and new EC delegates from Nigeria, Hungary, and Tunisia, in addition to a holdover from Qatar. A number of these nations are among INTERPOL’s worst abusers and none are reliably willing to support the leading democracies in INTERPOL. This configuration of the EC would leave those democracies with only six clear votes on the EC, giving Morocco – which is both the host of the 2025 GA and the holder of the final seat on the EC – considerable power.

Moreover, INTERPOL has always had either (or both) a Western European or a U.S. Secretary General or President. Talent is no respecter of borders but given that Western Europe and North America contain many of the world’s democracies and provide much of INTERPOL’s funding, a further democratic retreat from INTERPOL leadership – if it occurs – would be troubling. As always, the future of INTERPOL is in the hands of the GA.

Dr. Ted R. Bromund, Sole Owner and Proprietor of Bromund Expert Witness Services, LLC, Consultant to Grossman Young & Hammond, LLC, and Member of the New Lines Institute TNR Working Group

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