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The article was first published in Abogados on 5 December 2025 and can be read in Spanish here.
In an opinion piece for Abogados, International Human Rights Advisors co-founder Rhys Davies, argues that international criminal law is now a frontline issue for South America. As cross-border crime increases, states are relying more heavily on cooperation mechanisms such as INTERPOL Red Notices. While these tools can be effective, Davies notes they are often misunderstood and wrongly treated as international arrest warrants, despite having no automatic legal force.
The result is an uneven system where individuals may face detention, travel restrictions, or legal uncertainty depending on how a country chooses to respond to an alert. Davies highlights that South America is increasingly at the centre of this dynamic – navigating legitimate criminal prosecutions alongside cases involving political motivations or commercial disputes disguised as criminal matters. He argues that stronger safeguards, greater transparency, and respect for due process are essential, and that South America’s legal community is well placed to help lead global reform of international criminal cooperation.
Reform does not mean dismantling international criminal cooperation. It means strengthening safeguards, ensuring transparency where possible, and maintaining robust mechanisms to challenge alerts that do not meet adequate standards. Interpol has created the Files Control Commission to address these challenges. Awareness of these protections remains limited, and access can be difficult.
Understanding how Interpol operates has become essential knowledge, not an optional skill. The gap between what these mechanisms were designed to be and how they function in practice can be the difference between justice and injustice. Borders are becoming increasingly porous to information, while remaining barriers to traditional policing. Systems that close this gap will only grow in importance.
Continue reading here.
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Image: Unsplash
El Salvador maintains more than 800 active Red Notices – an unprecedented use of Interpol’s system as an extension of its domestic state of emergency.
Ben Keith and Rhys Davies will be speaking at the Bar Association of Buenos Aires in Argentina in December.
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