Terrorist financing – FATF checklist

At the end of March the Financial Action Task Force published guidance for jurisdictions, especially non-members, to help them assess their compliance with the Eight Special Recommendations (SRs) on Terrorist Financing which it issued at the end of October 2001. MLB runs through their counsel.

SR 1 focuses on the relevant United Nations instruments, namely the 1999 UN International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism ( http://untreaty.org/English/Terrorism.asp) and five Security Council Resolutions (S/RES/1267(1999), S/RES/1269(1999), S/RES/1333(2000), S/RES/1373(2001) and S/RES/1390(2002); the first, third and fifth of these deal principally with Afghanistan, the Taliban and combating Al Qaida; the second is a more general exhortation to cooperate in the fight against terrorism and the fourth contains similar but stronger declarations including, notably, that states shall take steps to cut terrorist funding; all are available at www.un.org/documents/scres.htm). The Recommendation requests jurisdictions to ratify and implement fully the 1999 Convention to and implement the UNSC Resolutions, whether by legislative or executive act, and to deliver the corresponding instruments to the UN. At 19 March 2002, 132 countries had signed and 24 had submitted ratification instruments, sufficient for the Convention to come into effect on 10 April 2002.