Thus, an Interpol international notice is a document used to help the world's law enforcement community exchange information about missing persons, unidentified bodies, persons who are wanted for committing serious crimes, and criminal modus operandi.

In addition, notices are used by the International Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda to seek persons wanted for serious violations of international human rights law.

Each notice gives full details of the individual concerned and in the case of red notices, the relevant national arrest warrant or court order and specifically requests that the fugitive be traced and arrested or detained with a view to extradition.

Based on requests made by the National Central Bureaus, the General Secretariat produces notices in all four of the Organization's official languages (English, French, Spanish and Arabic). However

An Interpol Red Notice is not an international arrest warrant.  

There are 21 names on the Interpol's Wanted by Costa Rica list:

	Red Notice Used to seek the arrest with a view to extradition of subjects wanted and based upon an arrest warrant.
	Yellow Notice Used to help locate missing persons, especially minors, or to help identify persons who are not able to identify themselves; for example, a person suffering from amnesia.
	Blue Notice Used to collect additionnal information about person identity or illegal activities related to a criminal matter. This notice is primarily used for tracing and locating offenders when the decision to extradite has not yet been made, and for locating witnesses to crimes.e, and for locating witnesses to crimes.
	Black Notice Used to seek the true identity of unidentified bodies.
	Green Notice Used to provide warnings and criminal intelligence about persons who have committed criminal offences, and are likely to repeat these crimes in other countries.

Red Notice
The legal basis for a red notice is the arrest warrant or court order issued by the judicial authorities in the country concerned and therefore serves the purposes of both police and judicial officials.

Many of the Organization's member countries consider a red notice a valid request for provisional arrest, especially when the requested country is linked to the requesting country via a bilateral extradition treaty or an extradition convention. This is particularly true when the legal instruments on extradition (national law, treaty or convention) allow for the use of Interpol channels to forward such requests.

Furthermore, Interpol is recognized as an official channel for transmitting requests for provisional arrest in a number of bilateral and multilateral extradition treaties, such as the European Convention on Extradition, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Convention on Extradition, and the United Nations Model Treaty on Extradition.

If a red notice is considered to be a valid request for provisional arrest, the appropriate judicial authority in a country receiving the notice can decide, on the basis of the information contained in the notice, that the wanted person should be provisionally arrested. In that case, the requesting country will be informed that the wanted person has been provisionally arrested and that the extradition process can be launched. It will also have an assurance that the person concerned will be detained for an adequate length of time.

If, on the other hand, a fugitive is traced in a country where a red notice is not considered to be a valid request for provisional arrest, the requesting country will have to issue a request for provisional arrest after it has been informed that the wanted person has been located. There is then an obvious risk that the individual will have time to escape to another country or that he will have to be released before extradition proceedings can be initiated. Consequently, the recognition of a red notice as a valid request for provisional arrest both simplifies and speeds up the extradition process.

Source: Interpol Wesbite