No money For Terror Meet: global effort for anti-terrorism standards has long way to go

The third edition of No Money for Terror (NMFT) conference in New Delhi “recognised the leading role played by UN Security Council Resolutions in countering the threat from terrorism and its financing, through implementing sanctions against global terrorist entities.”

The resolutions adopted by the 1267 committee of the United Nations against terror entities led to the freezing of assets, arms embargo and travel ban against the sanctioned entities.

But how effective is the mechanism, given the adamance of some countries on specific cases?

“What we also need to do is to bring about a position in the UN Sanctions Committee where you cannot veto a proposal more than three times,” Anil Wadhwa, Executive Council member of New Delhi-based Global Counter Terrorism Council, told WION, referring to the veto-weilding practices of five permanent UN Security Council member states, including China.

Beijing in the past vetoed India’s proposals to blacklist Pakistan-based terrorist figures such as Jaish-e-Mohammed founder Masood Azhar, and more recently, Lashkar-e-Taeba terrorist Shahid Mahmood. 

At No Money For Terror meet, India also called for listings and de-listings under the UN sanction regimes in an “objective-manner, based on evidence, and free from political considerations and duality of standards”.

The legwork to limit number of vetoes at UNSC

On 17th November, a day before India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi emphasised on a “unform, unified and zero-tolerance approach” against terrorism while inaugurating the NMFT Conference, the United Nations General Assembly heard renewed appeals for ‘substantive’ reforms in the UN Security Council. Countries such as Italy, Luxembourg and Japan called for the limits on the use of the veto by five permanent member nations. 

“The legwork for that (to limit the number of vetoes) has already started,” said Wadhwa, who served as Indian envoy to Italy, Poland and Lithuania, Thailand, and Oman in the past. 

‘Big gap’ on monitoring terror-financing through cryptocurrency, virtual asset routes

The New Delhi NMFT meet also called upon the participating states to design preventive measures, legislation and forward-looking technological solutions to counter threats from virtual assets and new financial instruments. 

“There are only 60 countries who have actually started monitoring cryptocurrencies. The rest have not. There is a big gap between the countries when it comes to terror-financing through such channels,” Wadhwa said. “There has to be uniformity in monitoring non-banking financing of terror.”

NMFT meet and the Financial Action Task Force standards

The 93 countries and multilateral organisations that met in New Delhi affirmed commitment to Paris-based FATF’s Anti Money Laundering/Countering Financing of Terrorism standards  in “promoting the implementation” of the said standards.

Abhijit Iyer-Mitra, senior research fellow at New Delhi-based Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, said that the FATF standards to list countries for facilitating terrorism follow a “multiple choice questions or tick the box” criteria, adding, “the FATF list has to be a dynamic list.”

“The basic thing that India should insist on is that an FATF listing needs to be a principle-based application from rules-based application which is exactly what it is right now, a fill-the-checklist rules-based application,”  Iyer-Mitra told WION.

In October 2022, the FATF took Pakistan off its “grey list” of countries under “enhanced monitoring” for facilitating terror-financing. The anti-terrorism financial watchdog reportedly welcomed what it called Pakistan’s “significant progress” in improving legal and government mechanisms to tackle terror financing. 

“In fact, it is precisely the removal of Pakistan from FATF based on a checklist that India should use as an example of how it’s clearly not working,” Iyer-Mitra said. 

Call for universal anti-terrorism standards

The ‘No Money For Terror’ meet also underlined that ‘opportunity for terrorist entities to access safe havens continues to be a significant concern’, reflecting India’s principal counter-terrorism challenge, supported and sponsored by Pakistan into Jammu and Kashmir. 

Experts view New Delhi’s attempts to bring about a global consensus for a “uniform, unified and zero-tolerance approach” against terrorism as attempts that must translate into “punitive action against countries who actually sponsor or close an eye to terrorism”.

“If you do not set universal standards and you are always talking about cross-border terrorism – which is a euphemism for Pakistan – then that’s something which is not taken seriously after a while because countries begin to perceive a political angle in it,” Wadhwa said.

“But on the other hand if every country is supposed to make certain obligations, then it becomes natural that everyone must oblige, even countries like China and Pakistan,” he said.