International crime rates have exceedingly reached their climaxes. New weapons, better transport and communication have been a benefit for the international crime. Simultaneously Interpol have to use such sources for the fight of crime. For Interpol communication is definitely the most important. This is what they specify on and depend on. A problem the Interpol were right away faced with at the start, or formation, was that internally not all countries participated that should have. For example delegates of China arrived to a vital meeting a week after it was over. So first it was more of an internal problem, which was exposed to getting Interpol started and successful. Following this is the problem of international communication. Working with different countries at once which have different laws etc. is a very hard task. Among talks through different countries constraints such as the limitations imposed by foreign laws, regulations and sovereignty issues and the impracticalities of pursuing some investigations because of geographical distance. Actually Interpol was introduced to avoid such constraints but still has to fight such problems, keeping in mind that Interpol does not have its own policemen nor does it have its own independent officers. Instead it is staffed by officers and agents of its member nations who are bound by their own national laws and regulations.
Keeping the above in mind, it is very hard to imagine how you can keep control or some sort of order if there is no real standard. Respectively this is one of the biggest problems Interpol has. Every time a different case appears Interpol has to track the culprits down according to the local laws. As soon as this person leaves the country Interpol has to adapt to totally different conditions and laws to further work on this case.
Clearly Interpol had to fight many international problems. But as mentioned before many also existed within the organisation. As we all know it is hard to work on an international level if you have not sorted yourself out internally. A rather big issue which came up was that Interpol’s pre war records had gone missing; which is today still unsolved. This probably held up the organisation in attempting to achieve its aims. As referred to in the introduction, Schober the actual former of the Interpol after world war one, turned out to be a very controversial personality. Apparently he was an anti communist and directly involved in an incident with 86 deaths of people after a demonstration, while he was still a Viennese police chief. In the end he also turned out to be the president of the Nazi regime in world war two. The Soviet Union was never even invited by Schober to join the committee. This shows a lack of the actual ‘internationality’ which should be present. In fact this is discrimination. By now this has changed, but for a fact it was a problem for the Interpol since a valuable member was missing. It is a very controversial topic, who should be the leader? At the moment it is a committee consisting of different nationalities which is in charge and there for a better solution.
Interpol is subsidised by each countries government. The population per ten thousand depend on the amount of money Interpol get from each member country. The budget is fixed at the rate of 2.50 Swiss Francs per 10,000 Inhabitants for nations with a total population of less than 10 million, while a complicated sliding scale was adopted for countries with larger population. With such a vast amount of money many expenses have to be take care of, but the question resolves: Is the funding versus the expectations appropriate? It is sure that the expectations are high, as mentioned in the introduction, but expectation does not become valid unless success is present. Interpol has played a big role in car crimes, murdering crimes and hi tech crimes etc. Still one of the main objectives remains terrorism. This is a very serious theme but other countries like the US probably are mostly in charge of this, so the Interpol probably do not play such a big role. And the communication with other countries does not always work, and this area is an aspect of the problems Interpol had while trying to achieve its aims.
Until 1985 the Interpol organisation was not in charge for terrorism and political crimes etc. From 1985 onwards with Kendall’s coming into the office, Interpol however changed its orientation and is presently also involved in such things as fight against terrorism, criminal organizations, -related crimes, and crime, , and . Basically it has widened its horizons drastically. Until this moment they were slightly condemned to a minimum and only played a minor role, for a vital world organisation. They did not have the freedom so much of investigating certain things, not like they have fully achieved this now, but when this was present they definitely had difficulties in achieving their aims.
As a result Interpol seem not as international as expected. Hearing the word international police, everyone would think they were the top rule. But they did encounter many problems such as, communication with different countries, leaders, location and internal conflicts. Still with any organisation you could say Interpol is slightly subjective and prefers a west dominated environment. From this you could resolve Interpol as being a more national than international organisation, which brings forward the issue of how far of an international organisation, is it really? One thing they encounter well is the communication network; a big database which holds all information and is linked to all facilities of Interpol. In comparison it is the access which causes many problems. It is probably one of the most difficult problems Interpol had to encounter in their working career.
Looking at the central areas I think the area of interaction most prevalent in my writing is community. Only by working as a whole can Interpol achieve its aims. By the help of other countries and their communication they can work to together to come to general solutions and agreements. It is vital that each country participating puts in all effort they can to make the result with other countries involved best. By working over cross boarder relations they are able to encounter tasks. As I mentioned it is very difficult for this to happen because of the different laws, still by working as a community and using communication to its maximum value the best result can be made. I consider environment to be an aspect which cannot be avoided in this piece of writing. Only through making the best of our community can we make the best of our environment. It is what we live in every day and so have to ensure the safety of our environment. Interpol is a perfect example of an international organisation which is trying to make our environment safer. I think this is very important and so is a good contribution to the world’s community and well being.
Reference List:
Interpol. (2003). Introduction to Interpol. http://www.interpol.com/Public/Icpo/introduction.asp
(May 7 2003)
(1999). Interpol grows towards the next millennium. http://www.afp.gov.au/raw/publications/platypus/june99/interpol.htm
(May 6 2003)
Maj (Retd) Agha Humayun Amin. (2000). Interpol, some basic facts. http://www.paksearch.com/globe/2000/SEP/interpol.html
(May 7 2003)
Interpol. (2003). Structure of Interpol. http://www.interpol.com/Public/icpo/governance/default.asp
(May 5 2003)
