A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE UN INSTRUMENTS AGAINST TERRORIST FINANCING

Abstract

Terrorist financing with its different modes has become a core area of interest for researchers and policy makers around the world. With the passage of time the troika of terrorist financing; money laundering as a means for financing terror; and transnational organized crime has become a new equation to be considered for possible eradication. As terrorist financing has assumed complexities worldwide, so has the global response for countering it gained more legal maturity. In 2006, the adoption of “Global Counter Terrorism Strategy” aimed at strategizing policies and actions for combating Terrorism and especially Terrorism Financing. In 2009, ‘International Convention for the Suppression of Financing of Terrorism’ largely filled the lacuna in identifying terrorist financing as a criminal offence. This paper is aimed at critically analyzing the different UN instruments for countering terrorist financing along with the challenges encountered in their implementation. It assesses that one of the most difficult aspects in countering terrorist financing remains the manner in which different UN Member States synchronize these instruments with their domestic legal framework. Another complicating factor remains the ever evolving complexity penetrating into terror financing.