129. In light of the limitations on the nature of the review which INTERPOL conducts prior to publication of INTERPOL alerts, and the concerns that have been raised previously by national courts, governments and international organisations regarding their evidential weight (see paragraphs 58 to 59 above), it is worrying that the existence of an INTERPOL alert is being used to justify the refusal of refugee status. Unless INTERPOL can demonstrate that it is able to prevent the dissemination of abusive alerts effectively, Member States should not rely heavily on INTERPOL alerts for the purpose of refugee status determination. In some instances, the criminal prosecution that forms the basis of the alert will be the evidence of persecution. Extradition Refusals 130. Our recommendation to INTERPOL that it should adopt a clear rule regarding the deletion of an INTERPOL alert when an extradition request has been refused on human rights or political motivation grounds has yet to be addressed. The standard practice in INTERPOL vis-à-vis extradition decisions has been, and continues to be, that information about these decisions is recorded as an addendum to an INTERPOL alert,130 so that they can be taken into consideration by Member States when deciding how to respond to the alert. 131. As discussed previously, the CCF has started to publish excerpts of some decision since March 2017. Some of these excerpts now give us a better understanding of how the CCF and INTERPOL take into consideration extradition refusals by domestic courts when assessing the compliance of data with Articles 2 and 3 132. It is encouraging to see that INTERPOL views extradition refusals as a persuasive factor in assessing the compliance of INTERPOL alerts, but if INTERPOL is able to adopt a general rule that requires the deletion on the basis of refugee status, it should also be able to adopt a similar one regarding extradition refusals on human rights and political motivation grounds. Refusals of extradition on human rights grounds, much like grants of asylum, are decisions made by countries to prevent cross-border transfers of individuals with a view to protecting the individual from violations of human rights. While extraditions are not regulated by an international legal INTERPOL General Assembly, Resolution AGN/543/RES/7 of 1984; CCF Decision Excerpt No 2 confirms that extradition refusals will, rather than automatically leading to deletion as Fair Trials has proposed, be recorded as an addendum to the original notice. Available at: https://www.interpol.int/ content/download/34452/452069/version/2/file/Decision%20Excerpt%20N%C2%B02.pdf 131 CCF, Decision Excerpt 2 130 60 of INTERPOL’s constitution.131 The CCF appears to take a case-specific approach to extradition refusals, acknowledging that such decisions can be made for a variety of reasons, and that not all refusals imply that the extradition request was politically motivated or issued in violation of international human rights principles. This seems to be a sensible approach, but it is not accompanied by a general policy of deleting INTERPOL alerts in cases where extraditions have clearly been refused on human rights or political motivation grounds. Instead, the CCF acknowledges that decisions to refuse extraditions on human rights or political grounds could, in ‘some cases’ be regarded as ‘additional evidence’ that the INTERPOL alert violates Article 2 or 3 of the Constitution. As such, it appears that INTERPOL treats extradition refusals on human rights grounds as one of several factors to be taken into consideration for the purpose of determining compliance, as opposed to one that creates a strong presumption in favour of the deletion of the alert.

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