Curbing Terrorist Financing to End Terrorism. Law Essay

Curbing Terrorist Financing to End Terrorism
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Terrorist financing is a real issue that is derailing the efforts to combat terrorism globally. The act of funding organizations or terrorist acts exploits loopholes in governments' economic systems to provide these organizations with funds to fulfill their agenda. Money laundering facilitates the illegal transfer of funds to terrorist organizations. The Financial Action Task Force, an intergovernmental organization, is tasked with tackling money laundering and terrorist financing. It develops policies and monitors the implementation of anti-money laundering policies in its member states. Countries need to comply with the policies and show that they are actively putting enough measures to combat terrorism. Failure to do so, the states are blacklisted and face the consequences such as economic setbacks. The decision to whether a country is liable for blacklisting depends on a vote from member states, and it makes it seem like countries are more concerned about escaping the blacklisting rather than combatting terrorist financing. States should be held accountable for failure to curb avenues that money laundering can be used to finance terror not by a vote, but by examining facts and figures.
Cutting off finances is the most effective way governments can get ahead of terrorism before it even happens because terrorist organizations require a lot of funds to plan attacks, buy weapons, and offering living spaces and food for the insurgents. The money is obtained through donations or self-funding projects that are illegal; therefore it requires the money to be washed. Countries have consequently taken extreme measures to bolster the security of their financial systems. For instance, Australia’s AML/CTF Act and Financial Transaction Reports Act 1988 (FTR Act) monitors financial institutions. Service providers that remit money in bulk to the general public, such as banks and gambling services, are kept under scrutiny. The Criminal Code Act 1995 (the Criminal Code) charges individuals involved in planning executing and funding terror. Sympathizers are also considered to be in contempt of the Act and are exposed to charges and convictions.
Another country that is dealing with the issue is Pakistan, but their efforts have been under intense scrutiny for all the wrong reasons. Pakistan is close to being blacklisted by the Financial Action Task Force as it has been placed on probation for failure to do enough in curbing terrorist financing. The president of The Financial Action Task Force, Xiangmin Liu, warned Pakistan that it needs to step up and act faster on curbing terrorist financing by February 2020,...