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Followers of IHR Advisors will be very familiar with the pattern. A dissident is stopped at an airport on a warrant issued by the government she fled. A businessman finds his accounts frozen years after a better-connected rival took over his company in murky circumstances. Much of our work at IHR Advisors and Red Notice Monitor exists because these stories keep coming and also because the system that produces them remains poorly understood.

In an attempt to demystify the system, we have written a book. 

INTERPOL Law and Practice will be published by Thomson Reuters on 23 September 2026. It runs from the organisation’s history and structure, through the substantive law applied by the Commission for the Control of Interpol’s Files (CCF), to the mechanics of bringing a case before it. Extradition, asylum and reform each have a chapter of their own.

The organisation the book describes is not the one most people imagine. Interpol has no agents and makes no arrests. It is an information exchange connecting 196 member countries, whose databases are searched some 22 million times a day. Its power lies in what it circulates: a Red Notice published in Lyon can close borders and bank accounts on the other side of the world within hours.

The practical core of the book is a long chapter organised around the questions clients and practitioners ask in practice. How do you find out whether a notice exists? Should you travel in the meantime? What does an application to the CCF involve, how long does it really take, and what happens when the answer is no? The authors answer from their own case files and from anonymised CCF decisions, and the appendices reproduce the key legal texts alongside model application documents.

The stance will be familiar to anyone who reads this site. As we’ve said on many occasions, we want to be a critical friend to Interpol and an advocate for those subject to improper Red Notices. Police cooperation across borders is incredibly important and borders should not give refuge for serious criminals. The system is far from perfect, and anyone who’s touched by it knows that notices are relatively easy to issue but take years to delete.

Over the coming weeks we will publish a short series drawing on the book: the numbers behind the growth of the notice system, the questions clients ask most often, the test Interpol applies to political cases, the position of refugees, and the case for reform.

INTERPOL Law and Practice by Rhys Davies and Ben Keith is published by Thomson Reuters on 23 September 2026 and can be pre-ordered now from Sweet & Maxwell.

 

About the Authors

Ben Keith Barrister

Ben Keith is a co-founder of IHR Advisors and an internationally recognised lawyer specialising in INTERPOL Red Notice challenges, extradition, international human rights law and asylum. He is the co-author of Interpol, Law and Practice (Sweet & Maxwell, 2026). He is co-editor of Red Notice Monitor, the leading public resource on INTERPOL Red Notice abuse and the practice of INTERPOL’s Commission for the Control of Files.

Ben represents clients across every region in INTERPOL Red Notice and Diffusion challenges before the Commission for the Control of Files. He has secured the deletion of Notices issued by states including Russia, China, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Belarus, Iran and Venezuela, in cases involving journalists, opposition political figures, refugees, human rights defenders and business figures targeted in commercial and political disputes. He is the author of the INTERPOL chapter in The Practitioner’s Guide to Global Investigations (Global Investigations Review, 2026).

Ben has appeared as counsel before the European Court of Human Rights Grand Chamber, the UK Supreme Court, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, and the UN Committee Against Torture. He is a member of the List of Counsel for the International Criminal Court and the Kosovo Specialist Chambers in The Hague.

He regularly acts for politically exposed persons, journalists, human rights defenders and high net worth individuals facing extradition, INTERPOL Notices and other instruments of transnational repression. He provides legal commentary to national and international media including the Guardian, The Times, the Financial Times, The Telegraph, the BBC, Sky News, CNN, CBS 60 Minutes, The Economist, Politico and Al Jazeera.

Ben is ranked Star Individual in Chambers and Partners and a leading individual in The Legal 500 for extradition. He practises from 5 St Andrew’s Hill in London.

View Ben Keith's profile
Rhys Davies Barrister

Rhys Davies is a co-founder of IHR Advisors and an internationally recognised lawyer specialising in INTERPOL Red Notice challenges, international criminal law and international human rights law. He is the co-author of Interpol, Law and Practice (Sweet & Maxwell, 2026). He is co-editor of Red Notice Monitor, the leading public resource on INTERPOL Red Notice abuse and the practice of INTERPOL’s Commission for the Control of Files.

Rhys co-authored the report Undue Influence: the UAE and INTERPOL with Sir David Calvert-Smith, examining the systemic misuse of INTERPOL’s Notice and Diffusion systems by the United Arab Emirates and the implications for INTERPOL’s governance. He represents clients in INTERPOL Red Notice challenges before the Commission for the Control of Files, with particular focus on cases involving Middle Eastern and Central Asian states, and on the position of refugees, journalists and political dissidents targeted through INTERPOL by their states of origin.

Rhys has significant experience of in-country legal advice and assistance, most recently in the West Bank, and a specific interest in the Middle East. He is a member of the List of Counsel for the International Criminal Court, the Kosovo Specialist Chambers, and the Special Tribunal for Lebanon. He regularly speaks at, and chairs, events at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva and at the House of Commons on matters of international law.

Rhys is the author of numerous articles on INTERPOL Red Notice practice and on justice in the Middle East, and is in demand as a commentator on international human rights. He provides legal commentary to national and international media including The Times, the Guardian, the Independent, the Financial Times, CBS 60 Minutes, Sky News, City AM and Al Jazeera.

Rhys is recommended as a leading individual in The Legal 500. He practises from Temple Garden Chambers in London and The Hague.

View Rhys Davies's profile