RED NOTICE
September 2, 2023
In 2012, Costa Rica had me placed on the Interpol Red Notice. A few weeks later Japan had me placed on the Interpol Red Notice.
What is the Interpol Red Notice?
Primarily it’s a notice requesting that a person be detained upon entry into any country that is a member of Interpol. Usually for very serious offenses like war crimes, serial killing or major drug trafficking.
Costa Rice had the Red Notice issued for my stopping an illegal Costa Rican shark finning operation in Guatemalan waters. In 2017, after a change in government, Costa Rica removed me from the list with an apology.
Japan had me listed for conspiracy to trespass on a whaling ship. A whaling ship that was ruled by the International Court of Justice in The Hague to have been operating illegal by killing whales in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary in violation of the global moratorium on whaling by the International Whaling Commission. Japan still has me on the list making travel somewhat difficult.
Secretary of State Joh Kerry allowed me to return from exile back to the USA in 2013 and again in 2016. France has allowed me to enter and stay in France and I have entered Ireland without issue. I could be detained again when I return to the USA.
Canada has made it quite clear that if I set foot in my native country that I will be extradited to Japan.
In 2017, the European Parliament Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights cited my case as an example of how the Interpol system is abused.
From the Report:
53. Captain Paul Watson, a Canadian environmental activist, was arrested in Frankfurt on the basis of a Red Notice requested by Costa Rica 10 years after an incident in 2002, when his vessel belonging to the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society intervened against a poaching (shark-finning) Costa Rican fishing boat in Guatemalan waters at the request of the Guatemalan Government. Shortly after the incident, he was acquitted by a Costa Rican court of charges first of attempted murder, then of assault (against the Costa Rican fishermen). The Costa Rican court was clearly convinced of Mr. Watson’s innocence by the extensive film footage of the incident, which was later also shown in the documentary “Sharkwater” 43 But according to his lawyer, Captain Watson is still, or again, subject to a Red Notice based on the same facts.
It has been more than ten years that I have remained subject to the Red Notice.
I think it is time to challenge this Red Notice by turning myself in to see what the consequences will be. It is risky. If sent to Japan, I’m pretty sure I will remain in Japan – In prison. They want their revenge for ending their illegal whaling operations in the Southern Ocean.
It is because of this Red Notice that I was removed from the Sea Shepherd Board which resulted in my being ousted from the organization I founded and built over forty years.
I think I’ve paid enough of a price for my role in opposing the Japanese whaling fleet in the Southern Ocean. I guess there was always a price to pay. It could have been worst they could have killed me. They tried but failed. All they could do was threaten my freedom and restrict my traveling.
Excerpts from the report
Doc. 14277
29 March 2017
Abusive use of the Interpol system: the need for more stringent legal safeguards
Report 1
Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Rapporteur: Mr. Bernd FABRITIUS, Germany, Group of the European People’s Party
Summary
The Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights stresses the importance of Interpol as an efficient instrument for international co-operation in the fight against transnational crime, including terrorism. Interpol is constitutionally required to act in the spirit of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and barred from any intervention or activities of a political, military, religious or racist character. But in recent years, Interpol’s Red Notice system has been abused by some member States to persecute political opponents beyond their borders.
Targeted persons cannot successfully challenge Red Notices before any national or international courts. Such jurisdictional immunity can only be justified to the extent that an internal appeals mechanism provides an effective remedy in line with human rights standards. Interpol’s Commission for the Control of Files has been criticised for being ill-equipped to deal with the large and growing number and complexity of complaints.
The committee welcomes the recently adopted reforms as so many steps in the right direction and stresses the importance of their implementation in practice. Interpol is invited, in particular, to boost resources for checks of Red Notices and to focus on Notices emanating from National Central Bureaus which have abused the system in the past.
1. Reference to committee: Doc. 13566, Reference 4074 of 3 October 2014.
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Contents Page
A. Draft resolution ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 3
B. Explanatory memorandum by Mr Bernd Fabritius, rapporteur ……………………………………………………….. 5 1. Introductory remarks …………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 5 2. Interpol’s international notices system …………………………………………………………………………………… 5
2.1. Processing of International Notices and Diffusions …………………………………………………………… 6 2.2. Levels of control …………………………………………………………………………………………………………..6
3. The Commission for the Control of Files – Interpol’s appeals body ……………………………………………..7 3.1. Origin and composition ………………………………………………………………………………………………… 7 3.2. Supervisory role ………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 7
4. Substantive standards: Articles 2 and 3 of Interpol’s Constitution and its refugee policy ……………… 10 5. Allegations of abuse of the Interpol system ……………………………………………………………………………12
6. Weaknesses of the existing system and possible remedies – application of the “principle of causal responsibility” ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 15
7. Conclusion ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 17
2
A. Draft resolution2
1. The Parliamentary Assembly stresses the importance of Interpol as an efficient instrument for international co-operation in the fight against transnational crime, including terrorism.
2. Interpol is based on mutual assistance among national law-enforcement authorities and should function in full neutrality and with respect for the human rights of suspects.
3. The International Notice System allows police in member countries to share critical crime-related information. Police can use notices to alert law-enforcement bodies in other countries of potential threats, or to ask for assistance in solving crimes. “Red Notices”, in particular, are used to seek the location and arrest of a person wanted by a national jurisdiction or an international tribunal, with a view to extradition. The number of Red Notices increased dramatically over the last decade.
4. Article 2 of its Constitution requires Interpol to act in the spirit of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 3 strictly prohibits any intervention or activities of a political, military, religious or racist character. But in a number of cases in recent years, Interpol and its Red Notice system has been abused by some member States in the pursuit of political objectives, in order to repress the freedom of expression of or persecute members of the political opposition beyond their borders.
5. Red Notices have a serious negative impact on the human rights of targeted persons, including the rights to liberty and security and the right to a fair trial. Red Notices should therefore be requested by National Central Bureaus (NCBs) and circulated by Interpol only when there are serious grounds for suspicion against the targeted person. These grounds should be verified following procedures designed to minimise the possibility for abuse, without hindering international police co-operation in the vast majority of legitimate cases.
6. Targeted persons cannot successfully challenge Red Notices before any national or international courts. Such jurisdictional immunity can only be justified to the extent that an internal appeals mechanism provides an effective remedy within the meaning of applicable human rights standards. In this respect, Interpol’s Commission for the Control of Files (CCF) has been criticised for being ill-equipped to deal with the large and growing number and complexity of complaints.
7. The Assembly notes that Interpol has reacted to these criticisms by engaging in a dialogue including civil society. Interpol’s Working Group on the Processing of Information submitted a number of reform proposals adopted at Interpol’s General Assembly in Bali (Indonesia) in November 2016. Recent improvements, including those decided in Bali, include:
7.1. further strengthening Interpol’s internal vetting procedures before Red Notices are published, by setting up a task force consisting of lawyers, police officers and analysts;
2. 7.2. appointing a Data Protection Officer within Interpol’s Secretariat General;
3. 7.3. strengthening the CCF, whose new Statute will enter into force in March 2017, in particular by
separating its advisory function from its appeals function, increasing the number of members of the appeals chamber to five, setting clear timetables for its work, making its findings binding on Interpol, and increasing the resources at its disposal.
8. The Assembly welcomes these reforms as so many steps in the right direction. It stresses the importance of their implementation in practice and calls on Interpol to continue improving its Red Notice procedure in order to prevent and redress abuses even more effectively, including by:
8.1. further strengthening the preventive checks before Red Notices are circulated; in particular by:
8.1.1. increasing the capacity of Interpol’s task force entrusted with such checks by bolstering the resources placed at its disposal;
8.1.2. ensuring that information on relevant cases made available by international or regional intergovernmental human rights bodies (in particular the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and the competent bodies of the Council of Europe) and, if appropriate, by non-governmental human rights organisations is duly taken into account;
8.1.3. publishing sufficiently detailed, authoritative interpretations (“repositories of practice”) of Articles 2 and 3 of the Constitution and of Interpol’s policy in refugee and asylum cases;
2. Draft resolution adopted unanimously by the committee on 7 March 2017. 3
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8.1.4. re-examining Red Notices periodically so as to ensure that they are deleted when they have not given rise to successful extradition within a reasonable amount of time;
8.1.5. examining with particular care repetitive Red Notice requests emanating from the same NCB targeting the same person after earlier requests were either rejected by Interpol or their deletion ordered by the CCF;
8.2. strengthening the CCF as an appeals mechanism by:
8.2.1. making it fully independent from Interpol, in particular by continuing to ensure that staff members dealing with preventive checks are not involved in assessing complaints against Red Notices which had passed these checks;
8.2.2. increasing its capacity, in particular by making sufficient staff available with expertise in the fields of human rights and criminal law and procedure;
8.2.3. ensuring that the CCF fulfils minimum procedural standards, in particular by enabling the targeted persons and their lawyers to be informed of and to comment on the reasons for the Red Notice request given by the requesting NCB;
8.2.4. ensuring that the CCF responds to and resolves appeals within a reasonable time, taking into account the gravity of the consequences of a Red Notice for a targeted person;
8.2.5. ensuring that the CCF publishes its decisions, provided the applicants agree; the decisions shall be sufficiently motivated in order to contribute to the development of consistent and predictable case law;
8.3. dealing appropriately with NCBs which have repeatedly requested the publication of abusive Red Notices, in particular by:
8.3.1. keeping statistics on Red Notices filtered out upstream by Interpol’s preventive mechanism and downstream by successful challenges before the CCF;
8.3.2. subjecting new Red Notice requests by NCBs with a high number of abusive requests to more intensive ex ante scrutiny;
8.3.3. giving priority to complaints against Red Notices requested by NCBs with a high number of abusive requests also for ex post scrutiny by the CCF;
8.3.4. charging NCBs with a high number of abusive requests for the additional budgetary costs generated by more intensive scrutiny of their requests required both ex ante and ex post;
8.4. setting up a fund for compensation of victims of abusive or otherwise unjustified Red Notices financed by member States in proportion to the number of unjustified Red Notices emanating from their NCBs.
9. The Assembly calls on all member States of the Council of Europe to:
9.1. set a positive example by ensuring that their own NCB’s Red Notice requests clearly specify the targeted persons, the suspected crime and the elements of proof linking the targeted person to the alleged crime;
9.2. swiftly communicate to Interpol relevant information on persons targeted by Red Notices (for example the granting of political asylum and judicial decisions refusing extradition);
9.3. refrain from carrying out arrests on the basis of Red Notices when they have serious concerns that the Notice in question could be abusive;
9.4. make use of their influence within Interpol to ensure the implementation of necessary reforms so that Interpol respects human rights and the rule of law whilst remaining an effective tool for legitimate international police co-operation.
.
2. Interpol’s international notices system
6. Interpol’s main objectives are to “ensure and promote the widest possible mutual assistance between all criminal police authorities within the limits of the laws existing in the different countries and in the spirit of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights”.8
7. Interpol allows for a wide exchange of information by maintaining different databases with information on lost and stolen travel documents, data on known offenders, missing persons and dead bodies etc.
8. The proper functioning of this system relies on mutual trust between the various actors and the belief that member States would only use Interpol in good faith, solely for the purposes for which the Organisation was established. Those who abuse Interpol’s infrastructures for the persecution of their adversaries undermine the very foundations of international police co-operation.
3. Interpol General Assembly, Resolution AGN/66/RES/7, adopted during the 66th Interpol General Assembly – New Delhi, India, 15-21 October 1997.
4. Interpol, Annual Report 2015, p. 17.
5. Article 3 of the Interpol Constitution, I/CONS/GA/1956(2008).
6. See Herta Däubler-Gmelin, “How rogue regimes have weaponised Interpol”, Wall Street Journal, 28 June 2016; see
also, Strengthening respect for human rights; strengthening INTERPOL, Fair Trials International, November 2013, p. 14.
7. Doc. 13566, Reference 4074 of 3 October 2014, election of rapporteur on 30 October 2014.
8. Article 2 of the Interpol Constitution, I/CONS/GA/1956(2008).
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“It is strictly forbidden for the Organization to undertake any intervention or activities of a political, military, religious or racial character.”
39. This rule should protect individuals from political, religious or racial persecution and ensure Interpol’s independence and neutrality. It also reflects international extradition law, thus stressing the required purposive link between Red Notices and extradition. When extradition was never requested, was refused or is otherwise impossible, the Red Notice has no more (legitimate) reason to exist and must therefore be deleted. This should be verified at regular intervals in order to prevent Red Notices, with all their negative consequences for the individual, from “lingering” indefinitely.
40. One difficulty for the implementation of Article 3 is that there are not only offences that are political, military, religious or racial per se (so-called “pure” offences), i.e. acts criminalised solely due to their political/ military/religious/racial nature, directed against the State and affecting exclusively the public interest – for example, the crimes of treason, espionage, apostasy, or provisions criminalising the violation of apartheid rules; but also ordinary law crimes with a political/military/religious/racial background (so-called “relative” offences), i.e. acts that also contain ordinary-law elements and also affect private interests. In the presence of “relative” offences, Interpol applies the so-called “predominance test” (Resolution AGN/20/RES/11), on a case-by-case basis. Article 34 of Interpol’s Rules on the Processing of Data indicates that the following elements should be taken into account:
• – the nature of the offence, namely the charges and the underlying facts;
• – the status of the person concerned;
• – the identity of the source of data;
• – the position expressed by another country or another international entity (such as an international tribunal);
• – obligations under international law;
• – implications for the neutrality of the Organisation;
• – the general context of the case.
41. These elements are very general and provide little guidance for the assessment of individual cases. In line with proposals by representatives of civil society, Interpol has therefore developed a “Repository of Practice” on Article 3. According to Interpol’s website, “[t]he Repository provides guidance on the evolution and development of Interpol’s practice in application of Article 3 in a variety of circumstances, including offences committed by politicians and former politicians; offences committed in an unconstitutional seizure of power; offences with military, religious or racial aspects and offences against the security of the state”. This repository could be an important resource for putative victims of abusive Red Notices and their lawyers – but it is still not published on Interpol’s website.35 This is particularly regrettable as the CCF’s decisions (to date) lack meaningful justifications and are in any case not available to the public. This means that the “Repository of Practice” is really the only possible source to access Interpol’s “case law” as to the interpretation of Article 3.
42. Interpol’s new refugee policy was made public during a series of meetings in 2015, including at our committee hearing in Yerevan (Armenia) on 19 May 2015.36 The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) also indicated to me that it is aware of this policy. But it can unfortunately still not be found on Interpol’s website. [Secretariat note: see footnote 35 in fine: text published after the adoption of this report.]
51. Mr Azer Samadov left Azerbaijan for fear of political persecution after having supported a candidate opposing President Aliyev in 2003. He was first arrested in Georgia, accused of “participating in public disorder” under Article 220 of the Azerbaijani Criminal Code. He was later recognised as a refugee by the UNHCR and granted protection by the Netherlands. But in 2009 he was again detained, at Amsterdam airport, due to an Interpol alert issued by Azerbaijan. His application to the CCF in 2010 did not receive any answer. In 2014, the Chief of the Dutch National Police Central Unit contacted the CCF, reminding them that they had been silent for over four years and pointing out that Mr Samadov was considered as welcome in the Netherlands. Having still not received an answer, Mr Samadov remained unable to travel, including to receive crucial medical treatment in Germany, because of the Red Notice. The notice was finally removed in 2015, eight years after it was first issued, on the basis of Interpol’s refugee policy.41
52. Mr Djamel Ktiti, a French national, was arrested first in Morocco and then in Spain on the basis of an Interpol Red Notice issued at the request of Algeria. He spent a total of two and a half years in detention. On both occasions, his extradition was refused on the basis of a finding by the United Nations Committee against Torture (UNCAT) in 2011 that his extradition would present an unacceptable risk of his being exposed to torture and being prosecuted on the basis of evidence obtained by torture. An application to the CCF by Fair Trials International and Redress was made in January 2015, and the Red Notice was removed later that year.42
53. Captain Paul Watson, a Canadian environmental activist, was arrested in Frankfurt on the basis of a Red Notice requested by Costa Rica 10 years after an incident in 2002, when his vessel belonging to the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society intervened against a poaching (shark-finning) Costa Rican fishing boat in Guatemalan waters at the request of the Guatemalan Government. Shortly after the incident, he was acquitted by a Costa Rican court of charges first of attempted murder, then of assault (against the Costa Rican fishermen). The Costa Rican court was clearly convinced of Mr. Watson’s innocence by the extensive film footage of the incident, which was later also shown in the documentary “Sharkwater”.43 But according to his lawyer, Captain Watson is still, or again, subject to a Red Notice based on the same facts.
