INTERPOL’s Commission for the Control of INTERPOL’s Files (CCF) recently finished its last session under the governance of INTERPOL’s existing rules.  The CCF began and completed its session in late May. Several of INTERPOL’s governing sets of rules will be abrogated by the new Rules on the Processing of Data, which become effective on July 1, 2012.

Of course, we all wonder if the Commissioners and the CCF staff were wistful during that last session? Was it a bittersweet time as they reviewed requests?  Will they miss the old rules come next session? Were there tears?  Alas, we will likely be left in suspense about those questions and have to wait until the 2012 Annual Report is issued next year to find out the CCF’s perspective on life under the new rules.  (The 2011 Annual Report is due out this month, and is reasonable to assume that the 2012 Report will be released under the same time frame next year.)

I, for one, welcome the new rules, as I imagine other INTERPOL attorneys do.  The rules, while not replacing all of the existing rules, certainly go a long way toward reorganization and simplification of the three sets of rules that they do replace.  More significantly, in addition to the change in format, there are substantive changes to the rules that should result in increased accountability of member National Central Bureaus- more on that in the next post.

So, for now, we will bid adieu to the old rules and look forward to the implementation of the new.

As always, thoughts and comments are welcomed.