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On 9 July 2026, Ben Keith and Rhys Davies of IHR Advisors, joined by associate Cristian González Ruiz, took part in an evening seminar at Leiden University’s Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies at the Spui Campus in The Hague. The seminar, When Policing Becomes Political: International Police Cooperation in the Era of Spin Dictators, tested how far the machinery of INTERPOL has been bent to serve authoritarian ends. It drew a strong turnout across two panels, and IHR Advisors was proud to co-host what proved a genuinely substantive night of discussion.
The seminar ran two panels, chaired by moderators from Leiden. Alongside the IHR Advisors team, the speakers were:
A spin dictator is an authoritarian ruler who holds power by manipulating information rather than by mass violence, a concept developed by the economists Sergei Guriev and Daniel Treisman. These regimes crave the appearance of legality, and INTERPOL Red Notice suits that method well. A notice carries the imprimatur of an international police body across 196 member states, yet the underlying request often originates with the very government the target has fled.
Transnational repression is the practice of authoritarian states reaching beyond their borders to silence, surveil, harass or detain critics. The first panel examined what obligations international law places on states when they act on a foreign police request, and where the duty to check that request against human rights standards begins. The second turned to the people on the receiving end: journalists, opposition figures and human rights defenders pursued abroad before any court has tested the case against them.
Ben Keith set out how Red Notice abuse works in practice and how it is challenged. Removing an improperly issued notice runs through the Commission for the Control of INTERPOL’s Files, the body that reviews whether a notice complies with INTERPOL’s own constitution, in particular the Article 3 bar on political, military, religious or racial matters. Rhys Davies drew the thread through to state responsibility and the wider international law framework, including the European Convention on Human Rights obligations that bite when a requested state considers acting on a notice, and how human rights defenders can be protected from abuses. Cristian González Ruiz added a ground-level view, tracing how a targeted individual experiences the notice long before any hearing, from frozen bank accounts to blocked travel and the constant risk of arrest at a border.
The common thread across both panels was sobering. The tools of legitimate cross-border policing and the tools of repression are frequently the same tools, and the difference lies entirely in who is pulling the lever and why.
IHR Advisors acts for individuals targeted by INTERPOL Red Notices and Diffusions, preparing submissions to the Commission for the Control of INTERPOL’s Files and pursuing the deletion of politically motivated alerts. Ben Keith is ranked as a leading practitioner in extradition and INTERPOL work, and our team, including Rhys Davies and Cristian González Ruiz, combines that expertise with a broader international law practice covering extradition defence, human rights litigation and sanctions advisory. We act quickly, and we act in confidence.
Our thanks to Leiden University’s Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies for co-hosting, and to every speaker and attendee who made the evening what it was. The original announcement remains available on our website.
If you are facing a Red Notice or fear you are the target of transnational repression, contact us in confidence.
If you would like to speak with us about our areas of practice or anything else please contact us via the form linked below.
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