There is perhaps no international institution better known yet less understood than the International Criminal Police Organization—ICPO INTERPOL (INTERPOL or Organization). Throughout a century of practice, INTERPOL has tested the bounds of how international organizations are composed and operate. The present symposium explores how the long history of this Organization has shaped its current role and potential development, as examined through the lenses of international law, global security, and criminal justice.

With a global reach of 196 member countries, INTERPOL is the world’s largest police organization and a linchpin of the global security architecture. While thus well-established, there are a number of atypical—and sometimes controversial—features of INTERPOL’s legal framework, which concern, inter alia, its legal status, membership, representation, and accountability.

In media and popular imagination around the world, INTERPOL is often portrayed as a globetrotting network of investigators engaged in dramatic cross-border pursuit. With a view to confronting such misconceptions and institutional folklore, INTERPOL has recently taken the relatively unprecedented step of initiating public discussion and scholarly analysis of its current legal situation.Footnote ¹ Although a certain degree of secrecy may be desirable for an organization so closely connected to policing and security, this more open exploration of the internal workings of INTERPOL allows for a more insightful and academically valuable understanding of its legal framework.

The unconventional nature of INTERPOL’s organizational characteristics can be explained by its raison d’être and history. In particular, INTERPOL operates with a uniquely explicit insistence on neutrality, as mandated by its 1956 constitution whereby, in accordance with Article 3, “it is strictly forbidden for the Organization to undertake any intervention or activities of a political, military, religious or racial character.”Footnote ² Notably, INTERPOL’s constitutional provisions on neutrality were reinforced following the Nazi Party’s appropriation of INTERPOL’s predecessor, the International Criminal Police Commission (ICPC), in furtherance of the Party’s mass violations of international law. The importance of INTERPOL’s neutral position is thus seen both in relation to the risk of using it in the furtherance of crimes, and in the risk of rendering its founding mandate ineffective.

Furthermore, INTERPOL retains substantial flexibility in its legal framework, as is necessary for it to fulfill its mandated functions. By adopting its 1956 constitution, INTERPOL’s member countries deliberately rejected earlier proposals for a constitutional framework of a more classic type. Reminiscent of its origins as the ICPC, INTERPOL’s General Assembly decided to establish it on a basis which features elements that are unusual in international organizations, such as the absence of an intergovernmental non-plenary organ.

The practice of the Organization has raised still other questions concerning representation. Members of INTERPOL have typically been represented by subject-matter experts in policing, rather than government appointees. This tendency is connected to preserving the neutrality of the Organization and to ensuring that policing cooperation is maintained, despite tensions which may arise at other levels.

Notably, INTERPOL’s membership includes some territories that are not (and do not purport to be) sovereign states. This has enabled a broader geographical span in membership, whilst allowing cooperation with authorities that are factually in control of police forces in these territories. Rather than requiring cooperation within INTERPOL’s network of non-sovereign territories to proceed through sovereign states, the Organization pragmatically allows for the direct participation of non-state territories such as Aruba.

One of the more intriguing general international law questions concerning INTERPOL relates to the legal character of its constitution. Some have openly rejected the notion that the constitution has the status of a treaty or otherwise binding instrument under international law.Footnote ³ At the same time, many member countries, the United Nations Economic and Social Council and other international actors have continuously expressed unwavering support for (and recognition of) INTERPOL’s legal status as an international organization.

The Organization also possesses unique characteristics with regard to its accountability and compliance mechanisms. In particular, the Commission for the Control of INTERPOL’s Files (CCF) is an independent body tasked with ensuring that the Organization processes personal data in conformity with its established rules. The CCF takes binding decisions in relation to the Organization, and can moreover order financial damages to be paid out to individuals.

Against this backdrop, the present symposium gathers insights from prominent experts on the law and practice of international institutions, each of whom approach INTERPOL’s legal framework from a different perspective.

We begin with a contribution co-authored by two INTERPOL officers, Benjamin Katzenberg and Ananya Kuthiala (respectively, Senior Counsel and Principal Legal Agent). The authors set out four preconditions for the facilitation of credible and neutral organizational cooperation: immunity from legal process; freedom of movement; secure communications; and financial autonomy. They recall that such protections prevent the politicization of disputes, enable rapid and reliable exchanges of information, and shield operations from external pressure—a matter of particular importance to INTERPOL’s work and mandate. Mr. Katzenberg and Ms. Kuthiala briefly trace the historical development of these principles since the practice of the League of Nations, culminating in INTERPOL’s General Agreement on Privileges and Immunities, which opened for signature on November 27, 2025. While the immunity of international organizations has come under sharp scrutiny in recent times, the authors consider that the General Agreement is an innovative codification of privileges and immunities, an effective way to protect its mission of facilitating global police cooperation, and an important development in the multilateral recognition of INTERPOL as a classical subject of international law.

We then turn to Sir Michael Wood, a former principal Legal Adviser to the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office and former member of the UN International Law Commission, who examines INTERPOL’s international legal character in the light of first principles. He shows that both UN and state practice now point clearly to INTERPOL’s status as an intergovernmental organization, with a constitution governed by international law. Sir Michael also considers related questions concerning membership and representation. He notes that while the INTERPOL constitution refers to “countries,” its membership is overwhelmingly comprised of states, and delegations are appointed by competent governmental authorities in practice. From this historical perspective, Sir Michael shows readers how the development of an institution that was initially designed to facilitate limited police cooperation may be defined under public international law today.

Machiko Kanetake, Professor of Public International Law at the University of Amsterdam and Academic Director of the T.M.C. Asser Institute, then focuses on human rights safeguards in the operation of INTERPOL’s well-known Red Notices (i.e., requests from member countries to help locate a person for possible arrest and extradition). She begins by identifying key points in the design of this mechanism, and observes that it leaves each country responsible for its decision to act pursuant to a Red Notice (rather than serving as a truly binding warrant). Prof. Kanetake traces the practical effects of this mechanism for the individual concerned, and explains why domestic due process guarantees remain central in this regard. She then assesses how the Notices and Diffusions Task Force provides for ex ante screening, and how the Commission for the Control of INTERPOL’s Files instead offers ex post review. Prof. Kanetake thereafter identifies related (and open) questions concerning Articles 2 and 3 of the INTERPOL constitution, as well as those concerning the transparency of reasoning in the issuance of Red Notices.

Next, Laurence Boisson de Chazournes and Camille Letoublon (respectively, Professor Em. and Research and Teaching Assistant at the University of Geneva Faculty of Law) consider the compliance and responsibility of INTERPOL, its institutions and participating states under INTERPOL’s Rules on the Processing of Data. They explain how these rules assign distinct roles to data sources, to the General Secretariat, and to data recipients, and observe how this rule distribution can complicate the attribution of responsibility when multiple actors contribute to a single harm. In this context, Prof. Boisson de Chazournes and Ms. Letoublon develop a working concept of shared responsibility that accounts for multi-actor causation, and propose that due diligence should operate as a continuing duty that includes revisiting earlier decisions when new facts arise (for example, in regard to the recognition of refugee status). The authors thereafter analyze corrective measures with specific attention to Article 131 of the Rules, and propose adopting standards that can guide institutional responses to persistent non-compliance.

We turn then to Kristina Daugirdas, Professor of Law at the University of Michigan, who focuses on growing concerns that authoritarian governments are using INTERPOL’s tools to target dissidents and political opponents abroad. The Notices and Diffusions Task Force and the CCF are important mechanisms to prevent abuse of the Organization’s tools. Prof. Daugirdas argues, however, that these protections may be vulnerable amidst rising authoritarian pressures. INTERPOL’s constitution is unlikely to be amended to delete the requirement that the Organization undertake its activities “in the spirit of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights [UDHR],” nor to eliminate the CCF altogether. But protections against abuse may be eroded in more subtle ways. For example, the CCF and the Task Force could be starved of funding and resources, or the constitution’s reference to the UDHR could be reinterpreted more narrowly. Prof. Daugirdas concludes by warning that democratic states may have to confront difficult questions about INTERPOL’s future, given the uneven commitment to preventing abuse among its members.

Our final discussant, August Reinisch (Professor of International and European Law at the University of Vienna and a member of the UN International Law Commission) analyzes INTERPOL’s privileges and immunities from the perspective of access to justice. In this context, he situates current doctrine in the line of authority associated with the well-known case of Waite and Kennedy, where the availability of adequate alternative remedies shapes the scope of immunity to judicial proceedings before national courts. Prof. Reinisch maps the mechanisms that address these concerns, including staff tribunals, contract arbitrations, the routing of certain tort claims to the Permanent Court of Arbitration, and the binding decisions of the CCF in data disputes. Returning to the discussion of a general agreement on privileges and immunities that bookends this symposium, he considers how this development may regularize practice whilst preserving neutrality and operational effectiveness.

In summary, the present symposium is timed to both INTERPOL’s centenary and its recent approaches to some of the same challenges discussed herein.Footnote ⁴ The explorations that unfold along the foregoing lines give rise to two general (and intertwined) observations. On the one hand, INTERPOL’s distinctive features reflect lessons drawn from both its long history and the practical needs of global police cooperation. As is clear from the contributions to this symposium, this has in turn provided operational room for the Organization to maneuver, whilst preserving its neutrality and effectiveness.

On the other hand, such idiosyncrasy is (somewhat paradoxically) not as unique as one might assume. Indeed, from a broader vantage point, we can see that international organizations routinely develop legal frameworks that bear the imprint of their particular origins and mandates.Footnote ⁵ In this sense, INTERPOL’s distinctiveness—and the present collection of perspectives on these modalities—may be best appreciated as a rich illustration of the broader pattern of institutional specificity under international law.