One of the major functions of Interpol is to provide crime related information to the police (law enforcement organizations) of the member countries, with the use of the system of organization’s international notices. The referred information relates to wanted persons, missing nationals, unidentified corpses, potential danger and summaries of facts of criminal cases. The system of international notices is one of the most important tools in the efficient activities of the International Criminal Police Organization.

On the basis of the solicitations of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Office of Prosecutor General of Georgia (when red notice is concerned) National Central Bureau of Interpol in Georgia refers to the Interpol General Secretariat with the request of publication of a relevant notice. Upon the discussion of received documents, General Secretariat makes decision about the appropriateness of conducting search with the use of Interpol channels and publishes notices on all official languages of the organization: English, French, Spanish, and Arabic.

THE SEVEN TYPES OF NOTICES AND THEIR OBJECTIVES ARE:
	Red Notice To seek the arrest or provisional arrest of wanted persons with a view to extradition.		Yellow Notice To help locate missing persons, often minors, or to help identify persons who are unable to identify themselves.
	Blue Notice To collect additional information about a person’s identity or activities in relation to a crime.		Black Notice To seek information on unidentified bodies.
	Green Notice To provide warnings and criminal intelligence about persons who have committed criminal offences and are likely to repeat these crimes in other countries.		Orange Notice To warn police, public entities and other international organizations aboutpotential threats from disguised weapons, parcel bombs and other dangerous materials.
	Interpol-United Nations Special NoticeIssued for groups and individuals who are the targets of UN sanctions against Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

INTERPOL’S RED NOTICES AND TRADITIONAL PRE-EXTRADITION PROCEDURE

Interpol provides its member countries with red notice which are used to send detailes of a national arrest warrant to other countries, and which ask for the arrest of a fugitive with the view to extradition. Each red notice is published in Arabic, English, French and Spanish by the General Secretariat, at the request of the National Central Bureau of a member country which fills in the appropriate form (Red notice application form - Publication of an international wanted notice with a view to arrest and extradition). In its current form, a red notice containes the following information, depending on whether it is being issued for a fugitive wanted for prosecution or to serve a sentence:

Consequently a red notice - which is necessarily based on a valid national arrest warrant or a court decision - contains all the information normally required for a request for provisional arrest. The question facing the General Secretariat therefore is whether Members of the Organization consider red notices to be valid requests for provisional arrest.

This is a matter of vital importance if the extradition process is to be effective and rapid. If red notices are not consideres to be valid requests for provisional arrest, that means that their only affect is to ask for a person to be traced and, if he is found, to allow the police department which locates him to detain him for a short time. At that point, a request for provisional arrest would have to be sent by the requesting State to the appropriate judicial authority in the requested State so that a decision can be taken.