How do you remove an INTERPOL Red Notice? The short version, from an INTERPOL Red Notice lawyer.

My clients are attacked by states, business rivals and former partners who bring fabricated criminal and civil cases to destroy them. A Red Notice, a sanctions listing, a charge left on the record for years. The reputation goes first. The law catches up later, if at all.

Some nationality laws still do not pass through the mother. A child born abroad to such a mother can hold no nationality at all. The 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness exists because of that maternity ward problem, and sixty-five years on it still needs invoking.

I am shortlisted for Reputation Lawyer of the Year at the Spear's Awards 2026. The category is for lawyers who defend a client's privacy and good name. Most reputation lawyers face newspapers. I face states. Winners announced next Tuesday at Raffles London at The OWO.

The seven CCF members elected in Hong Kong will decide every Red Notice challenge from March 2027. Newly elected members serve five years, re-elected members three. For most people the Commission is the only body that will ever examine the notice against them.

A compliance officer who sees a customer's name next to the words stolen and INTERPOL has one safe course: freeze the account. The first bank froze and the others followed. The burden then moves to the customer to prove, account by account, where money held for years came from.

The UN Committee against Torture has a judicial function as well as a reporting one, and its interim measures can stop a removal. The route depends on the detaining state having accepted individual complaints. The United Kingdom has not. Neither has the United States.

Russia, China, India, Saudi Arabia and Iran have all been accused of pursuing critics on British soil. I told The Guardian why it goes on: the UK government is not prepared to stand up to anybody. Nothing since has changed that view.

In many countries the first step in extradition is provisional arrest: detention before the papers have arrived, on the strength of the request alone. None of it waits for the allegation to be tested. What is done in the first hours sets the limits of everything that follows.

Sanctioning a Brazilian Supreme Court justice meant one government attacking another state's judiciary. The Georgian designations rested on far stronger evidence and still achieved little: they handed Georgian Dream a story of Western interference.

A businesswoman charged with issuing false VAT invoices had never held office. She chaired a company linked to a politician who criticised the state. The CCF asked the requesting country what she had personally gained. It never answered. The notice fell. rednoticemonitor.com/interpo…

INTERPOL Law and Practice comes with model CCF documents, checklists and tables of the arguments commonly raised before the Commission. Rhys Davies and I wrote it for practitioners who need to assess risk quickly and advise with confidence. sweetandmaxwell.co.uk/en-gb/…

You have four months from the final domestic decision to lodge an application in Strasbourg, down from six under Protocol 15. A Rule 39 application runs on a far shorter clock, because it must reach the Court before the removal happens. Both deadlines are hard.

A lawyer nobody has heard of is the easiest one to silence. A dissident with a public voice is harder to attack. Lawyers rarely have that profile, which is why they are so often targeted. Talk about their cases, in the media and in bar associations. My one request in Copenhagen.

Rendition is abduction with a government letterhead. Each time a state snatches someone instead of requesting extradition, the law is not enforced, it is bypassed. The treaty route exists so that nobody has to be snatched.

Idris Hasan, a Uyghur activist, was detained in Morocco on a Chinese request. The UN Committee against Torture granted interim measures and Morocco complied. Three and a half years in custody, but he was never sent to China, and he is free. The route works where states accept it.

In fraud and corruption cases, which is what most Red Notice applicants face, the decisive question at the CCF is personal benefit. If the requesting state cannot show what the person gained, its notice is in trouble.

The business of being a barrister has five parts: clerks, expenses, networks and marketing, fees, tax. Bar school teaches none of them and pupillage touches on a few. I have started a weekly series on LinkedIn on the things they do not teach you at Bar school.

Sanctions compliance starts with knowing which regimes bind you: UK, US OFAC, EU, UN. Then due diligence, monitoring and the right licences. The same transaction can be lawful under one regime and a criminal offence under another. I explain the steps. youtube.com/watch?v=zlwx7QGe…

A sanctions designation and a Red Notice both put a name on a list. Both do most of their damage before any court has looked at the case. Both depend on the good faith of the state doing the listing. A list is only as fair as the route off it.