U.S. and International Responses to Terrorist Financing

Center for Contemporary Conflict article from Anne L. Clunan: U.S. and International Responses to Terrorist Financing.

Ms. Clunan does an excellent job outlining the various national and international anti-money laundering laws and how they apply to counter-terrorist financing. She also lays out pre-9/11 and post 9/11 responses to terrorist financing.

Introductory paragraph:

According to one well-informed observer, the U.S. effort to combat terrorists' access to financial resources has been dubbed "the most successful part" of the global community's counter-terrorism strategy since the Al Qaida September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. This longevity of this success, I argue, hinges on the United States' ability to continue to frame the nascent pre-9/11 international anti-money laundering regime as a counter-terrorist financing regime. The international norms and practices that make up the new counter-terrorist financing (CTF) frame have rapidly spread in the past three years. However the ultimate effectiveness, measured in terms of implementation and enforcement, of the new CTF regime depends on states' redefinition of their national interests to include combating terrorist finance.

Successful implementation of the CTF frame internationally unfortunately may result only from other countries being attacked:

Internationally, the issue of counter-terrorist financing competes with a slew of other items on states' bilateral and multilateral agendas. I argue that the primary cause of success of international implementation of CTF norms outside of the OECD is not U.S. power and pressure, but the exogenous shock of terrorist attacks in the countries in question.