But when the police are the criminals, there is indeed a trade-off. Regimes like Russia and China don’t recognize the distinction between ordinary crimes and political offenses — a distinction on which Interpol is based.
By ignoring that distinction, Interpol winds up “acting as an arm of a criminal regime to go after its enemies,” in the words of Bill Browder, the Putin critic and foremost target of Russia’s Interpol abuse. The Kremlin has repeatedly asked Interpol to arrest Browder, who has called out Russian corruption, though Interpol has rebuffed the requests.
Interpol’s neutrality on Russia’s membership amid the war in Ukraine comes down to refusing to do anything that could be perceived as taking sides. That isn’t neutrality; it’s blindness. True neutrality means enforcing Interpol’s rules against all comers, regardless of the identity or the reaction of the rule-breaker.
Interpol’s blinkered vision of neutrality doesn’t just affect courageous activists like Browder. It threatens the U.S. In 2018, the U.S. requested, and got, an Interpol Red Notice to try to apprehend Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Putin crony and the founder of Russia’s notorious mercenary Wagner Group.
But in 2020, after a complaint was filed by Prigozhin’s attorneys, Interpol withdrew the Notice on the grounds that it “would have significant adverse implications for the neutrality of Interpol” by causing it to be “perceived as siding with one country against another.”
Interpol’s vision of neutrality rests, as Stock states, on the belief that “if there is any state activity, Interpol is not conducting any activity.” But if the state is the one committing the crimes, Interpol’s efforts to remain neutral put it tacitly on the side of criminal states like Russia.
Unfortunately, after taking a strong stand last March in demanding Russia’s suspension, the Biden administration has backtracked. In August, the State Department and the attorney general published a report that found — in defiance of the evidence published by Interpol itself — that there has been no Interpol abuse since 2019.
Incredibly, the U.S., which pays the largest share of Interpol’s bills, is now so afraid of pointing fingers at the abusers and standing up for Interpol’s rules, that it can’t bring itself to cite the State Department’s own Country Reports on Human Rights, which testify to the ongoing reality of Interpol abuse.
Interpol’s critics are not always on target. The organization is right to resist calls, such as a recent one from the Wall Street Journal ’s editorial board , to get involved in areas outside the ordinary crimes to which it is restricted by its Constitution. Interpol isn’t supposed to pursue offenses of a “military character,” even ones as well-documented and massive as Russia’s violations of human rights and commission of war crimes in Ukraine.
The question is not whether Russia is in the wrong in Ukraine. Russia is in the wrong, and Russia should be held to account. But Interpol is not the right tool to use for that purpose.
Interpol has enough trouble preventing abuse of its systems already. If it gets involved at the behest of the combatants in pursing war crimes, it will be faced with rampant politicization. Those who are concerned about Russia’s politicization of Interpol should not respond by urging Interpol to break its own rules.
At the same time, there is a right way to get Interpol involved in this fight. The international community could establish a tribunal to try Russians for offenses related to genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. The tribunal could then enter into cooperation with Interpol and make requests to locate and detain suspects.
This is the procedure established in 2010 by Interpol’s General Assembly, which is designed to ensure Interpol does not turn into a judge of the rival claims of warring combatants. The European Parliament’s recent designation of Russia as a terrorist state is a significant step in this process.
Until an international tribunal is established, Interpol has plenty of work to do. Above all, it needs to stop telling half-truths about its rules, abandon its biased vision of neutrality, and start living up to its fundamental requirement to enforce its own rules, even if Russia and China perceive that as taking sides.
Ben Keith is a London barrister specializing in cross-border and international cases at 5 St. Andrew’s Hill.
Ted R. Bromund is a senior research fellow with The Heritage Foundation’s Thatcher Center for Freedom.
This article was first published in Politico on 24 January 2023, you can view the original article here .
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