The Future of Interpol: Policing International Crime in a Political World December 13, 2021
The largest
organization facilitating cooperation among police across nations, Interpol was
established in Vienna in 1923 as the International Criminal Police Commission.
From the start, the organization was meant to be a practical, non-political
entity designed to establish direct means of communication and information
exchange among police in the fight against international crime. Re-founded in
1946 as the International Criminal Police Organization, the organization has
since steadily expanded its membership, presently counting police from 195
nations.
Despite its
success as an ever-growing international organization, Interpol has regularly
faced criticisms and problems. During World War II, the organization was taken
over by Nazi Germany, although without much, if any practical consequences.
During the Cold War, concerns over the political abuse of Interpol’s
international notices system by police from then-Communist Czechoslovakia led
the FBI to leave the organization as the American representative. Since then,
such political disturbances have continued to plague Interpol from time to time.
Most recently, widespread concerns have been voiced over the election of
Interpol’s President, Ahmed Naser Al-Raisi of the United Arab Emirates, who is
facing serious allegations of overseeing, and failing to properly investigate,
police torture and human-rights abuses in his country.
The very reason
Interpol was founded was to fight non-political international crimes
efficiently, an objective that was enabled by sufficiently autonomous police agencies
uniting on the basis of a shared professional understanding concerning the
means and objectives of controlling international crime. Interpol’s independence
in international police work does not mean the organization is above the law,
nor does it absolve the organization and its members from legal accountability.
In view of its growth and the widely accepted raison d'être of its existence,
Interpol must always rely on legitimacy as a global organization. As such, the
symbolic role of the President of Interpol is as important in displaying global
unity as is the practical function of its Secretary-General, who oversees the
day-to-day operations, to fight international crime effectively.
The election of
Al-Raisi in November 2021 has placed Interpol in a bad spotlight, to wit the enormous
negative media publicity the matter has received. Moreover, from a practical
viewpoint, the potential for abuse of Interpol’s technologies and methods of
cooperation, especially the red notices system asking for the arrest of
fugitives from justice, becomes a thorny issue under politicized conditions
that betray Interpol’s own founding principles. International police cooperation
can be achieved concerning non-political, distinctly criminal matters, for
which reason precisely Interpol was founded. But cooperation will fail when international
police operations are politically motivated.
Interpol can today
claim to be among the world’s largest international organizations, but it must operate
by professional police standards. This objective is jeopardized when
participating police function as a political instrument of autocratic
governments, such as Russia, China, Turkey, and Venezuela, among others, seeking
to show themselves to be viable players in world affairs. Under these
circumstances, it is possible that police from countries lacking democratic
ideals and professional standards will seek to take advantage of Interpol’s
notices system. Any assurances of the Secretary General that all requests will
be carefully vetted are meaningless because
cooperation in an atmosphere of mutual trust is the very essence of Interpol. This
condition of implied trust can only be guaranteed if participating police institutions
are explicitly committed to democracy and professionalism.
Practically,
moreover, any questionable participation in Interpol by police from autocratic
regimes might lead police from other, democratic countries to be much less
willing to cooperate. And should the police of a nation participating in
Interpol reject certain requests because of suspected political abuse,
international cooperation can be further undermined when other police members will
in turn retaliate by rejecting legitimate requests.
The potential for
such problems of both legitimacy and effectiveness in international police work
are increasingly real today because Interpol’s leadership has placed more emphasis
on growth in membership rather than adherence to its police mission. As such,
the success of Interpol as a global organization is one of the factors
contributing to its failure as an effective instrument in the fight against
international crime. If international policing on a multilateral scale is to
have any meaningful future, rather than just be a symbolic platform to show
goodwill, the organization’s constituent members will have to re-align the
mission of the organization in terms of its own founding principles. Interpol’s
success is to be measured, not by the number of nations represented, but by the
quality of its work and the fulfilment of its duties as an instrument in the
fight against international crime.
The time is now
for Interpol and its members to be decisive and ensure that the organization
lives up to its standards. Minimally, action must be taken to not allow the
organization to be tainted by leaders with problematic human-rights records
and, conversely, to allow police from democratic states (including Taiwan) to
participate fully. The organization’s investigative activities also need to be
monitored, and , if necessary, police from autocratic states should be removed
from membership. Otherwise, one cannot blame democratically committed police
agencies to pursue their international objectives unilaterally or on a
bilateral scale. The proliferation of such limited but very precisely directed
and highly effective cooperation efforts, especially by large law enforcement
organizations such as those of the United States, might then ultimately render
Interpol obsolete.
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Orion Policy Institute (OPI) is an independent, non-profit, tax-exempt think tank focusing on a broad range of issues at the local, national, and global levels. OPI does not take institutional policy positions. Accordingly, all views, positions, and conclusions represented herein should be understood to be solely those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of OPI.
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Mathieu Deflem
is a Professor of Sociology at the University of South Carolina. An expert on police,
counterterrorism, and law, he has published widely on the history and
development of Interpol and international policing. Among his books are Policing
World Society (Oxford University Press, 2002) and The Policing of
Terrorism (Routledge, 2010).
Email: deflem@mailbox.sc.edu
https://twitter.com/MathieuDeflem