Today’s post will address political motivation requests from INTERPOL member countries, and the effect they have on individuals as well as the organization as a whole. 

As an example from last year, consider the case of Milorad Dodik. As reported by Reuters, INTERPOL has denied a Bosnian court’s request for a Red Notice for Mr. Dodik, a Bosnian Serb separatist leader, who is accused of attacking the constitutional order and allegedly went abroad in defiance.

The controversy reportedly began after Mr. Dodik, the president of Bosnia’s autonomous Serb Republic, defied rulings by the international envoy to Bosnia, whose role is to prevent the Balkan state from slipping back into conflict. The dispute pits Mr. Dodik and his allies, Russia and Serbia, against the United States and the European Union. Reuters reported this conflict as one of the biggest threats to peace in the Balkans since the 1990s conflicts that followed socialist Yugoslavia’s collapse. 

Following the accusations against Mr. Dodik, the Bosnian court ordered an international arrest warrant be issued for Mr. Dodik and his aide based on his alleged attack against the constitutional order after the two went abroad in defiance of an internal arrest warrant. The office of Serbian Interior Minister Ivica Dacic said in a statement, “We are informed that INTERPOL General Secretariat has evaluated, based on our protest note and explanation by the INTERPOL Belgrade, that the request is not aligned with the Article 3 of the Statute and that the terms for issuing warrants have not been met.” (Article 3 will be discussed further in part 2 of this post)

Politically motivated Red Notices are a common topic for the Red Notice Law Journal, and for good reason. A large percentage of Estlund Law’s improper Red Notice cases concern invalid criminal charges or the allegation of criminal activity when the overarching motivation for the charge is political in nature.

INTERPOL denied the Red Notice request in Mr. Dodik’s case based on the organization’s prohibition against involvement in politically motivated matters. It appears that INTEPROL was able to quickly identify the matter as one of a political nature.

Certainly, there remain instances where the organization cannot immediately identify the political motivation behind Red Notice requests. In such cases, the subject of the Red Notice often only learns of the notice when she travels or applies for a change in immigration status. The notice may lead to detention, a denial of immigration relief, bank account closures, and reputational damage.

Our next post will address Article 3 of INTERPOL’s Constitution, how it affects the organization, and the reason it was established. 

As always, thoughts and comments are welcomed.