Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2026
Abstract
Over centuries and across continents, authoritarian governments have demonstrated a large appetite for international cooperation to target political opponents across borders. In 1851, the “first modern police organization”—the Police Union of German States, whose members included Austria and Prussia—was established “with the express purpose of policing the political opposition of established autocratic regimes.” During the 1970s and early 1980s, military regimes in South America participated in a secret scheme known as Operation Condor to coordinate their efforts to suppress subversion. A recent analysis of twenty-nine “hard authoritarian” regional organizations found that twenty-five were engaged in police cooperation. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is an example. Its member states have agreed to jointly fight the “three evils” of terrorism, separatism, and extremism. Following a 2009 demonstration that led to riots in Urumqi, Xinjiang, some organizers fled abroad; at China’s behest, SCO members Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan detained and then extradited them back to China.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1017/aju.2025.10047
Recommended Citation
Daugirdas, Kristina. "The Durability of Protections Against Abuse at Interpol Amidst Rising Authoritarian Pressures." American Journal of International Law Unbound 120 (2026): 29-34.
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Comments
© The Author(s), 2026. Published by Cambridge University Press for The American Society of International Law.
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original article is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press or the rights holder(s) must be obtained prior to any commercial use.
Originally published as Daugirdas, Kristina. “The Durability of Protections against Abuse at INTERPOL Amidst Rising Authoritarian Pressures.” AJIL Unbound 120 (2026): 29–34. https://doi.org/10.1017/aju.2025.10047.