Interpol: Law and Practice

By Ben Keith & Rhys Davies

Interpol: Law and Practice is a new Sweet & Maxwell practitioner text on INTERPOL’s legal framework, its Notice and Diffusion system, and litigation before the Commission for the Control of INTERPOL’s Files (CCF). Co-authored by Ben Keith and Rhys Davies, co-founders of IHR Advisors, it will be published on 30 September 2026. It is written for lawyers who challenge INTERPOL Red Notices before the CCF, and for the agencies and governments that use the system legitimately.

Publisher: Sweet & Maxwell (Thomson Reuters), 1st edition

The CCF is the only body that can order INTERPOL to delete a Red Notice, and it is not a court. It does not retry the underlying case or decide guilt. It asks one question: does the data comply with INTERPOL’s own rules? Everything about effective Red Notice litigation follows from that limited mandate, and practitioners have had little published guidance on how the Commission actually applies its rules.

The book fills that gap. It explains the legal standards the CCF uses, illustrated with anonymised Commission decisions, and pairs them with the procedural realities: the ten-page submission limit, the four-month and nine-month statutory clocks, the presumption that whatever a state submits is accurate, and the rule of non-enquiry. Model documents for the data access request, the deletion application and the pre-emptive request are included.

A Red Notice is simple to issue and hard to remove. That imbalance is the problem the book addresses.

What is in the book

Part I: INTERPOL and the Notice System

• Chapter 1, Introduction. What INTERPOL is and is not, from the 1923 Vienna commission to 196 member countries and 22 million database searches a day, and why its neutrality rule is under strain.
• Chapter 2, INTERPOL’s Organisation and Funding. The organs of the institution, who holds which competence, and where the money comes from, including the suspended €20 million FIFA agreement.
• Chapter 3, Notices, Diffusions and INTERPOL Databases. Every colour of Notice from Red to the new Silver, the Stolen and Lost Travel Documents database, and Diffusions, which bite just as hard.

Part II: Substantive Law Before the CCF

• Chapter 4, CCF Applications: A Practical Guide. The questions clients ask (is there a Notice, can I travel, how long will it take) and the mechanics of applying, with model documents.
• Chapter 5, Substantive Arguments Before the CCF. The three grounds for deletion: Article 3 and the predominance test, Article 2 human rights, and the Article 82 purpose test, with anonymised decisions.
• Chapter 6, Further Arguments and Notices Before the CCF. Offence-type challenges and how Blue, Green, Yellow and Purple Notices and Diffusions are contested.

Part III: CCF Practice and Procedure

• Chapter 7, Evidence in CCF Proceedings. What a documentary tribunal will and will not look at: witness and contextual statements, open-source material, court documents and expert reports.
• Chapter 8, CCF Procedure and Decision Outcomes. The timetable from admissibility to decision, the presumption of accuracy, the rule of non-enquiry, the range of outcomes and the revision procedure.
• Chapter 9, Litigation Before the CCF: Challenges and Risk Assessment. First steps on instruction, travel risk, a country-by-country table of how Red Notices are treated at the border, and recurring case types from corporate raiding to unfunded cheques.

Part IV: The Broader Legal Landscape

• Chapter 10, Extradition. Dual criminality, the political offence exception, Khodorkovsky, immunities, and what an extradition refusal does to a Notice.
• Chapter 11, Immigration, Asylum, and Related Matters. Red Notices in asylum claims, visa applications and United States removal proceedings, and the position of stateless individuals.
• Chapter 12, Conclusions. The pattern of abuse, the CCF’s limits, new leadership at INTERPOL, and the authors’ case for reform.

Appendix A reproduces extracts from the INTERPOL Constitution, the Rules on the Processing of Data and the Statute of the CCF.

Read more from the book

• How to find out whether you have an INTERPOL Red Notice
• How to remove an INTERPOL Red Notice: the CCF application explained

About the authors

Ben Keith is a barrister at 5 St Andrew’s Hill and co-founder of IHR Advisors, specialising in INTERPOL Red Notice challenges, extradition, sanctions and asylum. Chambers and Partners ranks him as a star leader in extradition and Legal 500 places him in Tier 1. Rhys Davies is a barrister at Temple Garden Chambers, called in 2004, and co-founder of IHR Advisors, practising in international criminal law, INTERPOL, extradition and business and human rights. Both co-edit the Red Notice Monitor blog. IHR Advisors associate Cristian González Ruiz was lead researcher on the book.

Interpol: Law and Practice can be pre-ordered from Sweet & Maxwell. For a confidential discussion of an INTERPOL matter, contact us.