Countering Terrorist Financing: The Practitioner's Point of View

Terrorists need money to commit acts of violence and sustain their operations. Measures to combat terrorism therefore aim to prevent terrorists from raising, moving and using funds or other assets. The effectiveness – and the fairness – of these measures were considered at the second ‘Giessbach’ seminar on counter-terrorist financing (CTF) organised by the Basel Institute on Governance in October 2008.
This book contains essays presented at the seminar written by practitioners and academics with extensive experience in the field of CTF. The authors offer a diversity of views on the domestic, regional and international initiatives aimed at detecting terrorist funds in the financial system, preventing terrorists from moving their money via alternative financial channels and facilitating the recovery of terrorist assets. The editors conclude with in-sights into the ongoing challenge of making CTF measures both effective and legally sustainable in the lead-up to Giessbach III in December 2009.

The Editors: Mark Pieth is Professor of Criminal Law and Criminology at the University of Basel, Switzerland, and co-founder and Chairman of the Board of the Basel Institute on Governance. From 1989 to 1993 he was Head of Section on Economic and Organised Crime in the Federal Department of Justice and Police. Since 1990 he has been Chairman of the OECD Working Group on Bribery in International Business Transactions. From 2003 to 2005 he was a Member of the Independent Inquiry Committee into the Iraq Oil-for-Food Programme set up by the UN Secretary General. Mark Pieth is also a Member of the Wolfsberg Anti-Money Laundering (AML) Banking Initiative and a Board Member of the World Economic Forum’s Partnering against Corruption Initiative (PACI).
Daniel Thelesklaf is the Co-Executive Director of the Basel Institute on Governance. A lawyer by profession, he comes with 13 years of experience in anti-money laundering and anti-corruption work. After an initial career in the private sector, he became the first Director of the Swiss Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) in 1998. In 2002/2003, he was Head of the Liechtenstein Due Diligence Unit (supervisor). Daniel Thelesklaf was also involved in the establishment of the FIUs of the Bahamas, Ukraine, Macedonia, Kosovo and Kyrgyzstan.
Radha Ivory is a Research Fellow at the Basel Institute on Governance. A graduate in law and international relations, she practiced in employment law and litigation at top-tier Australian firm, Freehills, before relocating to Geneva, Switzerland, in 2006. There, she advised on combating abuse and exploitation in non-government organisations for the Humanitarian Accountability Partnership. At the Basel Institute on Governance, she specialises in anti-corruption and counter-terrorism law, particularly, the compatibility of multilateral asset recovery regimes with international human rights standards.