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120 AJIL Unbound 1 (2026)

handle is hein.journals/ajilunbo120 and id is 1 raw text is: doi:10.1017/aju.2025.10042 SYMPOSIUM ON INTERPOL AT 100: IMPROVING THE ORGANIZATION'S LEGAL FRAMEWORK INTRODUCTION TO THE SYMPOSIUM ON INTERPOL AT 100: IMPROVING THE ORGANIZATION'S LEGAL FRAMEWORK Brian McGarry* There is perhaps no international institution better known yet less understood than the International Criminal Police Organization-ICPO INTERPOL (INTERPOL or Organization). Throughout a century of practice, INTERPOL has tested the bounds of how international organizations are composed and operate. The present symposium explores how the long history of this Organization has shaped its current role and potential development, as examined through the lenses of international law, global security, and criminal justice. With a global reach of 196 member countries, INTERPOL is the world's largest police organization and a linchpin of the global security architecture. While thus well-established, there are a number of atypical-and sometimes controversial-features of INTERPOL's legal framework, which concern, inter alia, its legal status, membership, representation, and accountability. In media and popular imagination around the world, INTERPOL is often portrayed as a globetrotting network of investigators engaged in dramatic cross-border pursuit. With a view to confronting such misconceptions and institutional folklore, INTERPOL has recently taken the relatively unprecedented step of initiating public discussion and scholarly analysis of its current legal situation.' Although a certain degree of secrecy may be desirable for an organization so closely connected to policing and security, this more open exploration of the internal workings of INTERPOL allows for a more insightful and academically valuable understanding of its legal framework. The unconventional nature of INTERPOL's organizational characteristics can be explained by its raison d'ttre and history. In particular, INTERPOL operates with a uniquely explicit insistence on neutrality, as mandated by its 1956 constitution whereby, in accordance with Article 3, it is strictly forbidden for the Organization to undertake any intervention or activities of a political, military, religious or racial character.2 Notably, INTERPOL's constitutional provisions on neutrality were reinforced following the Nazi Party's appropriation of INTERPOL's predecessor, the International Criminal Police Commission (ICPC), in furtherance of the Party's mass violations of international law. The importance of INTERPOL's neutral position is thus seen both in * Assistant Professor of Public International Law, Leiden University, Netherlands. 1 In April 2024, the author co-organized with Prof. Niels Blokker of Leiden University a one-day public conference at INTERPOL's General Secretariat in Lyon, France. Bringing together international law scholars and practitioners, this first-of-its-kind event (entitled INTERPOL at 100 - Improving the Organization's Legal Framework), aimed to contribute to the clarification of some of the most contested legal aspects of the Organization, and thereby to strengthen the Organization's legal framework. The author thanks Ms. Theresa Khriesh, LL.M. (Leiden) for her valuable editorial support during the subsequent completion of this symposium. 2 Constitution of the ICPO-INTERPOL, adopted June 13, 1956, Art. 3. © The Author(s), 2026. Published by Cambridge University Press for The American Society of International Law. This is an Open 1 Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (https://creativeconmmonis.org/licenses/ by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.