Interpol - What powers does it have?

[brainfizz]

I’ve been wondering about Interpol, what is its primary task and how much power does it have in different countries. Are there any countries which don’t cooperate with it at all?

[RealityChuck]

AFAIK, they have no actual power – they only advise and pool information. Their website indicates they do training, too. But I don’t think they have policemen of their own.

No one is required to cooperate with them, but since they don’t have police powers, that’s not an issue.

[Dogface]

According to their own words (http://www.interpol.int/Public/ICPO/InterpolOverview.pdf) they essentially just act as an information clearing house. They have no actual police powers and no other compulsory powers at all.

[brianmelendez]

From the thread Police outside of their jurisdiction-limitations?:

Interpol is an intergovernmental commission, with a Secretariat and a General Assembly modeled after the United Nations, not a police force in the traditional sense:

Its aims are:

(1) To ensure and promote the widest possible mutual assistance between all criminal police authorities within the limits of the laws existing in the different countries and in the spirit of the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights”;

(2) To establish and develop all institutions likely to contribute effectively to the prevention and suppression of ordinary law crimes.

Interpol’s staff consists of civil servants and administrative staff, not police officers who patrol the world:

Main job profiles:
[ul][li]Processing criminal information: compiling and entering data communicated by the official law-enforcement departments, drafting replies to countries, etc.; [/li][li]Drafting and publishing notices; [/li][li]Crime analysis; [/li][li]Language services: one department for each of the official [/li]languages (Arabic, English, French, Spanish);
[li]Legal affairs and general reference departments; [/li][li]Information technology and telecommunications (systems management, research and development); [/li][li]Trilingual secretariat services (English, French, Spanish); [/li][li]Support services (general services, human resources, finance and accounts, security, document production, etc.).[/ul][/li]Place of work: Lyons, France

Interpol is not involved in any way in the recruitment of staff for the National Central Bureaus: such recruitment is the direct responsibility of the member countries’ national administrations.

The vast majority of positions for which staff are recruited under contract are sedentary posts with few opportunities to travel. As missions abroad are generally connected with police matters, they are usually carried out by the police officers seconded to the General Secretariat.

Interpol’s actual police functions are exercised exclusively through domestic law enforcement. When more than one nation’s police are involved, Interpol helps coordinate those police forces’ activities.

[Dogface]

I believe that “Interpol” is better interpreted as “go-between for police organizations” (which they are) than as “International Police” (which they are not).