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On 9 November 2026, Ben Keith and Rhys Davies, co-founders of IHR Advisors, spoke at UN House in Brussels at “Tackling Transnational Repression in Europe: INTERPOL, Red Notices and the Role of EU Member States”. The event was an expert seminar and panel discussion on INTERPOL Red Notice abuse. Ben opened the discussion and presented INTERPOL Law & Practice, the practitioner’s guide he co-wrote with Rhys. Rhys then spoke on the panel.
The seminar was convened by the UN Human Rights Representation Office to the European Union and the Permanent Representation of Germany to the EU, with civil society partners.
Transnational repression is the targeting of critics beyond a state’s borders, and its most damaging form borrows legitimate legal machinery. Ben explained how states use Red Notices, Diffusions, extradition requests and mutual legal assistance to give persecution an air of authenticity. An allegation of serious crime held in a foreign database can block asylum or residence. Some of our clients have been debanked over reports of a notice that turned out not to exist.
The Commission for the Control of INTERPOL’s Files (CCF) deletes notices on three broad grounds:
The difficulty is that abusive states have learned to avoid obviously political charges. Russia has long presented attacks on critics as fraud or tax cases that look genuine on paper.
Ben drew on our casework. International journalists who reported from Russia’s Kursk region were threatened with Red Notices, and the threat alone made them think twice about reporting. A Ukrainian client wanted on a Russian Red Notice was arrested in Moldova and then again in Italy. Italy’s hotel-registration system makes it very efficient at acting on notices. The CCF eventually deleted the notice as political and contrary to human rights, but that took more than a year. A client with fewer resources could have spent much of that time in a cell.
Rhys accepted that INTERPOL’s notice system does a great deal of good work, but said it would be naive to assume it works perfectly. The Red Notice system has been called “the autocrat’s sniper rifle”: a long-range targeting tool that is devastating in the wrong hands.
He identified two problems. The first is what gets into the system: garbage in, garbage out. Some states target dissidents and business rivals on an almost institutional scale, while others pay little attention to the quality of their data. The second is delay. The CCF works to a target of one month to decide admissibility and nine months to decide a deletion request. Rhys could not think of one of our cases that had met that timetable.
The aim of an abusive notice is often to grind a person down rather than to secure extradition. One of our pro bono clients was targeted because of a rivalry between two families. He has been stuck in Lebanon for eighteen months and has never met his daughter. A Red Notice does not need to lead to an arrest to do its harm.
Rhys also pointed to the lack of a clear, published body of CCF precedent, because decisions are heavily redacted. His proposals were more resources for the CCF, closer scrutiny before notices are published, and more pressure from the democratic states that fund much of INTERPOL for a more transparent system.
We act for journalists, human rights defenders, business people and families targeted through INTERPOL. Our work covers CCF deletion applications, pre-emptive requests, and extradition and international law advice. We take on pro bono cases where the person at risk cannot fund representation.
Our thanks to the UN Human Rights Representation Office to the EU and the Permanent Representation of Germany to the EU for convening the discussion.
If you are, or may be, the subject of a Red Notice or Diffusion, contact us in confidence.
Ben Keith Ranked Star Individual for Extradition in Chambers UK Bar 2027
