We use cookies where necessary to allow us to understand how people interact with our website and content, so that we can continue to improve our service.
We only ever receive anonymous information, and cannot track you across other websites.
View our privacy policy
International Human Rights Advisors took part in the 33rd Annual Session of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly in The Hague, where the Assembly adopted a resolution on the weaponisation of INTERPOL, published on 8 July 2026. The firm joined the panel ‘Countering Transnational Financial Repression’, co-hosted with the Open Dialogue Foundation, which looked at how Russia and other states turn INTERPOL’s machinery against people who have left the country. Cristian González Ruiz spoke for the firm.
The resolution warns that Russia is using INTERPOL’s notice system to reach its critics across borders, and it names real targets. Among them are lawmakers from several member states, and serving NATO and EU officials. It describes international police notices as ‘a key tool used by perpetrators of transnational repression’.
The Assembly reserved particular concern for two instruments. Purple Notices and the newer Silver Notice can be circulated, the resolution warns, without giving the named person a clear route to appeal or request a review. The Silver Notice is an intelligence alert that lets member states trace, identify and recover assets said to be linked to crime. In the wrong hands, it becomes something else. One German law official described it as an effective way for Russia to make quiet inquiries into a target’s bank accounts, property and companies held abroad. That is the financial engine of transnational repression, and it is the point at which our work begins.
INTERPOL tightened its checks on Russian requests after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The resolution makes clear the remaining gaps. The case that captured the problem was that of an International Criminal Court judge who learned only through third parties that Russia had likely issued a notice against him, and who has since had to think hard about every foreign trip.
The reforms are practical. The Assembly calls for statistics to be published by the issuing state, and, most of all, for the people named in notices to be told. Kozlovska has pointed out that several of these measures track provisions already moving through the United States Congress, which would give legislators on both sides of the Atlantic a common standard to work from. Del Barba framed the underlying issue plainly: INTERPOL runs on trust among its members, and a state that repeatedly abuses that trust should face countermeasures, including refusing its requests.
We act for people caught in exactly this pattern. Our INTERPOL practice prepares submissions to the Commission for the Control of INTERPOL’s Files to delete abusive Red Notices, Diffusions and the notices this resolution flags. That work is led by Ben Keith and by Rhys Davies, both of whom are ranked for extradition and INTERPOL matters. Where the attack is financial, our sanctions and asset team challenges the freezes and asset alerts that ride on the same politically motivated case. And where a state’s conduct engages its responsibilities under international law, we take the matter to the right treaty body or court.
Our thanks to the Open Dialogue Foundation and to the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly. The resolution was first reported by Euractiv.
A notice you cannot see is the hardest kind to fight. If Russia, or any state, has turned INTERPOL against you, 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.
Contact Us
Ben Keith and Rhys Davies write for The Africa Report on 7 November 2025.
Ben Keith at the Brussels Press Club on Georgia’s Rule of Law Crisis