Since 9/11, measures designed to criminalize financial support for terrorist organizations are increasingly linked to laws and regulations governing charities and nonprofits. The Financial Action Task Force, a global standard-setting body on anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing, sets recommendations for member states, which in turn promulgate laws and policies to combat illicit finance. In the U.S., the Department of Treasury is responsible for these programs.
Under this framework, repressive regimes and financial institutions can restrict the legitimate activities of civil society through the imposition of extensive legal and financial requirements. The important work that civil society organizations do to address the conditions conducive to the spread of terrorism must be protected.
This page contains information on many aspects of Counter-terrorist Financing, including on the Financial Action Task Force and U.S. Treasury.
Featured Resources
Money Going Underground? Maybe Overregulation Is Your Problem
The global war on terror has “successfully degraded two very important funding streams,” powerful private donors and state sponsors, said Michael Braun, Managing Partner of SGI Global, LLC and a former DEA Chief of Operations,
Charity & Security Network Asks Treasury to Open Dialog to Revise Decades Old Anti-Terrorist Financing Guidance
In a Nov. 23, 2015 letter to the Department of Treasury, the Charity & Security Network (C&SN)noting the need for “ongoing engagement between the U.S. government and the NPO sector to ensure that measures
Analysis – U.S. National Terrorist Financing Risk Assessment 2015 Sets Stage for Review of Rules Impacting Nonprofit Organizations
In anticipation of the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) evaluation of U.S. implementation of its anti-money laundering and terrorist financing (AML/TF) standards, the U.S. Department of Treasury published the first National Terrorist Financing Risk Assessment on June
OFAC Licenses for Humanitarian Aid
The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) within the U.S. Department of Treasury is tasked, in part, with ensuring that money from U.S. persons and entities does not fall into the hands of terrorist
A License to Aid? How Politics Delays Aid to Civilians in Conflict Zones
The Palestinian territories receive some of the highest amount of humanitarian aid of any place in the world from the U.S. government and charitable donors.[i] Most of this aid goes to the West Bank. The flow
FATF Issues New Risk Assessment Guidance, Targets NGOs
Gauging the effectiveness of the Financial Action Task Force’s policy and assessment mechanisms for laws to prevent terrorist financing and money laundering was the central question of a speech delivered by the organization’s president