Affiliated Investigators: Peter Romaniuk
Research Assistants: Tiffany Kwa '09
For information on the related Targeted Sanctions Project, please click here.
The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and those since, have heightened concerns about the ability of terrorist organizations to use the global financial system to support their activities. In response, international initiatives to combat terrorism have focused on preventing and suppressing the collection and movement of terrorist funds. This effort raises important questions: What are the sources of terrorist funds? How do networks for terrorist financing operate? How can they be regulated? Building on the work of the Watson Institute's Targeted Sanctions Project, the Targeting Terrorist Finances (TTF) Project investigates these and other questions.
Currently available: Countering the Financing of Terrorism (Routledge), co-edited by Biersteker and Eckert. The book has gathered leading analysts of terrorism, international relations, global finance, law, and criminology to explore the dynamic and changing nature of terrorist financing and assess efforts to date to combat it.
Click here for more information from Routledge and here for a flyer on the book.
The TTF Project has updated its bibliography of sources on terrorist financing. The bibliography lists documents from scholars, governments, inter-governmental organizations, and non-governmental organizations, providing hyperlinks to primary sources where they are available on the internet. Click here to view the Terrorist Financing Bibliography. Further details are below.
This website contains information about the:
Major Activities of the TTF Project
| September 2008 | American University Washington College of Law and the Government of Liechtenstein sponsor Symposium on Countering Terrorism Through Domestic & International Sanctions Listing: A Rule of Law Perspective. See http://www.wcl.american.edu/podcast/podcast.cfm for the podcast of the event.
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| Updated Terrorist Financing Bibliography released. The bibliography lists documents from scholars, governments, inter-governmental organizations, and non-governmental organizations, providing hyperlinks to primary sources where they are available on the internet. Readers are invited to submit comments and suggestions for additions or corrections, by sending an email here. Click here to view the Terrorist Financing Bibliography
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| April 2008 | Case Western Reserve University School of Law's Institute for Global Security Law & Policy and the International Association of Penal Law, “World Conference on Combating Terrorist Financing,” 11 April 2008, in which Sue Eckert was a panelist. The webcast of the meeting is available at http://law.case.edu/lectures/index.asp?lec_id=156 |
| Eckert’s presentation at the Wake Forest University School of Law’s 21st Annual Business Law Symposium, “U.S. Government Efforts to Suppress Terrorism Financing,” 4 April 2008. Audio files of the event are available at: http://law.wfu.edu/news/multimedia/2008.04.04.5.mp3 | |
| March 2008 | Biersteker/Eckert presentation, The Politics of Numbers in the Financial “War” on Terrorism, at the International Studies Association 49th Annual Convention, Bridging Multiple Divides, San Francisco, California, 26 March 2008. More information can be found at: http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p252246_index.html |
| “International Organizations as Instruments in Combating Global Terrorism: the Dynamics of Regime Formation and the Challenges of Regime Maintenance,” presentation by Biersteker for the Plusgarden Programme for the Study of Global Terrorism and Intelligence Conference on Combating Terrorism: The Role of International Regimes, St Antony’s College, Oxford, 14-15 March 2008 | |
| November 2007 | Biersteker presentation, “Financing Terror: Al Qaeda’s Changing Strategies,”at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, DC, November 5, 2007
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| September 2007 | Panel discussions of the recently-released book by Biersteker and Eckert, Countering the Financing of Terrorism at the United States Institute of Peace (Washington, DC) and the International Peace Academy (New York, NY). For an audio file of the United States Institute of Peace event on 6 September 2007, click here. |
| May 2007 | Wilton Park conference, CBRN Terrorism: Mapping the Threat. Eckert presentation on “The role of networks in contemporary terrorism: transnational financing and online networks.” |
| March 2007 | Biersteker and Eckert presentations at the International Peace Academy and the workshop: Contributions of Security Council Committees and their Experts. See the report, “The UN Security Council’s Counter-Terrorism Program: What Lies Ahead”, by Eric Rosand, et al of the Center on Global Counter-Terrorism Cooperation at http://www.ipinst.org/asset/file/207/cter.pdf |
| February 2007 | TTF team participates in working group meeting with UN and private banking representatives to discuss ways to improve the current assets freeze directed against Al-Qaida and the Taliban under the UN sanctions regime. See news article here. Cleveland World Affairs Council presentation on “Countering the Financing of Terrorism,” by Biersteker. “Time to Reevaluate Approach to Terrorist Finance,” Podcast Interview with Eckert, Council on Foreign Relations. Listen to the podcast here. |
| January 2007 | “The War on Terrorism: The Financial Front,” Council on Foreign Relations meeting, January 10, 2007. Speakers: David Aufhauser, Eckert, John Taylor. Read the transcript here. |
| December 2006 | Security Council adoption of Resolution 1730 establishing a new focal point mechanism for delisting requests, part of the recommendations in the Watson report titled Strengthening Targeted Sanctions through Fair and Clear Procedures. Presentation of the conclusions of the forthcoming book, Countering the Financing of Terrorism, by Biersteker to the Swiss Inter-Ministerial Council on Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism, Bern. Seminar by Biersteker for the senior staff of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights on targeted sanctions and human rights issues, Geneva. |
| November 2006 | Presentations in Europe by Biersteker: Strengthening Targeted Sanctions through Fair and Clear Procedures report to workshop on Human Rights and International Cooperation in Counter-Terrorism (co-sponsored by the OSCE, the UNOHCHR, and the Government of Liechtenstein), Vaduz, Lichtenstein. Presentation of paper on strengthening targeted sanctions, at the Center for International Studies, University of Zurich (ETH), and the International Center at St. Gallen University, St. Gallen, November. |
| September 2006 | Briefing of the Security Council by chairs of the 1267, 1373 and 1540 Committees, with discussion of the need for new delisting procedures. See UN press release here. |
| June 2006 | Security Council discussion of Fair and Clear Procedures as part of Strengthening International Law session (June 22, 2006). The report was made an official document of the UN General Assembly and the UN Security Council (A/60/887-S/2006/331). See report here. Paper by Biersteker on the emergent Countering the Financing of Terrorism (CFT) regime for regulating formal sector transactions, in the Global Economic Governance seminar at Oxford University. |
| May 2006 | Discussion by the Security Council of sanctions issues, including the Watson Institute’s report, Strengthening Targeted Sanctions Through Fair and Clear Procedures. See press release here. |
| March 2006 | Presentation of white paper entitled Strengthening Targeted Sanctions through Clear and Fair Procedures, making specific recommendations for the improvement of United Nations targeted sanctions procedures, especially concerning the listing of individuals and entities under UNSCR 1267 against al Qaeda and the Taliban. See press release here. |
| February 2006 | Participated in workshop organized by the UN Office of Legal Affairs on the human rights legal obligations of the UN Security Council. |
| January 2006 | Team leads a two-day roundtable discussion at the German House, New York, bringing together legal experts, UN representatives and scholars to discuss the draft white paper on strengthening targeted sanctions by addressing due process concerns. |
| November 2005 | Briefing of UN Security Council’s Informal Working Group on General Issues of Sanctions by Eckert on combating terrorism through the means of targeted sanctions. |
| March 2005 | Participation by Eckert in Club of Madrid International Summit on Democracy, Terrorism and Security. See press release here. |
| June 2004 | Building on the success of the October 2003 workshop, and with the support of the United States Institute of Peace, the TTF Project hosted a small group of experts to focus on the raising and movement of terrorists' funds in the context of the social organization of terrorist groups. Papers presented at this workshop are included in the volume, Combating the Financing of Terrorism, available June 2007. |
| TTF Project research, comparing the implementation of international terrorist financing measures in countries of the Islamic world, is published as an appendix to the Council on Foreign Relations' Updated Report on Terrorist Financing. | |
| October 2003 | Workshop of leading scholars and practitioners to discuss the "Financial and Transnational Dynamics of Terrorism." Co-sponsored by the Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, participants presented research on the financial and social organization of terrorism in transnational comparative perspective. The workshop attracted many of the leading academic and media experts on the social organization of terrorism (including Rohan Gunaratna, Jessica Stern, Nikos Passas, Zachary Abuza, Phil Williams, Michael Levi), as well as officials from governments and IGOs. |
| December 2001 | Presentation by Biersteker at the Council on Foreign Relations meeting on "Draining the Swamp: Terrorists and their Financial Assets." He subsequently served on the Council's Taskforce on terrorist financing, which produced two reports (in October 2002 and June 2004). For the latter of these reports, the TTF Project Team prepared an appendix, comparing the implementation of international terrorist financing measures in countries of the Islamic world. |
Publications of the TTF Project
Eckert/Biersteker, “The Politics of Numbers in the Financial “War” on Terrorism,” in Cooking the Books: The Politics of Numbers in Crime and Conflict, Peter Andreas and Kelly M. Greenhill, ed., forthcoming 2009.
Biersteker, Thomas J. and Sue E. Eckert (eds.) Countering the Financing of Global Terrorism, London and New York: Routledge Publishers.
Biersteker, Thomas J. (2007) “Lessons from the UN’s Counter-Terrorism Efforts for UNSCR 1540” in Olivia Bosch and Peter van Ham (eds.) Global Non-proliferation: the Impact of UN Security Council Resolution 1540, Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution.
Eckert, Sue E., (2005) “Lessons from the UN's Counterterrorism Efforts,” in Karen Ballentine, and Heiko Nitzschke (eds.) Profiting from Peace: Managing the Resource Dimension of Civil War., Boulder: Lynne Rienner.
Biersteker, Thomas J. (2004) “Counter-terrorism measures undertaken under UN Security Council auspices," in Alyson Bailes and Isabel Frommelt (eds.) Business and Security: Public-Private Sector Relationships in a New Security Environment, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Biersteker, Thomas J. with Peter Romaniuk (2004) "The Return of the State? Financial Re-regulation in the Pursuit of National Security After September 11" in John Tirman (ed.) Maze of Fear, New York: The New Press.
TTF Project (Watson Institute) (2004), "Appendix C: A Comparative Assessment of Saudi Arabia with Other Countries of the Islamic World," in Maurice R. Greenberg (Chair), Mallory Factor (Vice Chair), Lee S. Wolosky and William F. Wechsler (Project Co-Directors), Update on the Global Campaign Against Terrorist Financing: Second Report of an Independent Task Force on Terrorist Financing Sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations, Council on Foreign Relations.
Biersteker, Thomas J. (2002) "Targeting Terrorist Finances: The New Challenges of Financial Market Globalization," in Ken Booth and Tim Dunne (eds.) Worlds in Collision: Terror and the Future of Global Order, London: Palgrave/St. Martins.