Post-11 September counter-terrorist-financing architecture (2001-2010)

The post-11 September counter-terrorist-financing architecture (2001-2010) combined United States designations and regulation, United Nations obligations, FATF standards, financial intelligence and private compliance. These instruments had different authorities, targets, jurisdictions and evidentiary processes. Together they constrained many formal financial channels, but their effects on terrorist capability, lawful users and informal displacement must be assessed separately.

Authority map

President George W. Bush signed Executive Order 13224 on 23 September 2001. The order blocks covered property and interests in property and prohibits covered United States transactions involving designated persons. Dollar-system reach and private risk controls amplified its effect, but the order did not create a worldwide freeze by its own legal force.

Security Council resolution 1373, adopted on 28 September 2001, imposed general obligations on member states to suppress terrorist financing. The separate resolution 1267 regime maintained a name-based list with its own procedures. The two channels cannot be collapsed into one designation authority.

FATF adopted eight Special Recommendations on terrorist financing on 29 and 30 October 2001. A ninth followed later. FATF recommendations are standards implemented through national legislation, supervision and private compliance. They are not directly self-executing global law.

The USA PATRIOT Act expanded anti-money-laundering powers. Section 311 authorised special measures concerning jurisdictions, institutions, transactions or accounts found to be of primary money-laundering concern. It was not the authority for Specially Designated Global Terrorist listings.

Intelligence and institutionalisation

The Terrorist Finance Tracking Program used financial-messaging data for intelligence access and analysis. It was not an asset-freeze programme. Treasury publicly defended the programme after its disclosure in 2006, while legal and privacy disputes drove negotiations with the European Union. The 2010 European Union and United States agreement supplied the mature transatlantic framework within this study period.

Treasury announced the Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence in March 2004 and formalised its functions in April through Treasury Order 105-17. Banks, correspondent institutions, money-service businesses, SWIFT, charities and compliance providers transmitted public measures. Private institutions could exceed legal minima through de-risking and risk appetite.

Evidence, litigation and correction

Early authorities treated al-Barakaat as connected to terrorist finance. The 9/11 Commission staff monograph later reported that the reviewed evidence did not establish the alleged terrorist link. The later evidentiary record controls. An initial designation or public allegation must not be preserved as settled fact after contrary investigation.

In Kadi and Al Barakaat International Foundation v Council and Commission, the European courts reviewed and annulled the European Union implementing measure as applied to Kadi on fundamental-rights grounds. The courts did not invalidate the Security Council resolution itself. The 2008 and 2010 judgments concerned different stages of European Union implementation, process and review.

Outcome and assessment

The architecture expanded designation, intelligence and compliance reach and disrupted identified formal channels. Targets adapted through cash, informal transfer and other methods. Formal access became more costly and observable, but net effects on terrorist capability vary by instrument and target and remain difficult to isolate.

Account closure, delayed remittances and charity restrictions affected some lawful users. Their scope and causation require institution-specific and corridor-specific evidence. Designation totals cannot stand in for either security effectiveness or humanitarian harm. The authorities continued after 2010, but this bounded case ends with the mature TFI and transatlantic TFTP architecture.

See also

Executive Order 13224 (2001) · The financial warfare revolution (post-9/11) · USA PATRIOT Act Section 311 (2001) · United States Terrorist Finance Tracking Program and its disclosure (2001-2006) · Terrorist-financing designation (SDGT) · Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence (TFI) · Financial Action Task Force (FATF) · Financial warfare

Sources

• President of the United States, Executive Order 13224, 'Blocking Property and Prohibiting Transactions With Persons Who Commit, Threaten To Commit, or Support Terrorism', 66 Fed. Reg. 49079 (23 September 2001).
• United Nations Security Council, 'Resolution 1373 (2001)', S/RES/1373 (28 September 2001).
• United Nations Security Council, Resolution 1267 (1999) and subsequent committee resolutions.
• Financial Action Task Force, 'FATF Annual Report 2001-2002'.
• United States Congress, 'Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001', Public Law 107-56 (26 October 2001).
• National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, Monograph on Terrorist Financing (2004).
• United States Department of the Treasury, 'Treasury Announces Creation of Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence' (10 March 2004).
• United States Department of the Treasury, 'Treasury Order 105-17' (28 April 2004).
• United States Department of the Treasury, 'Terrorist Finance Tracking Program'.
• Stuart Levey, 'Prepared Remarks on the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program', United States Department of the Treasury (23 June 2006).
• Council of the European Union, Agreement between the European Union and the United States on the processing and transfer of Financial Messaging Data for the purposes of the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program (2010).
• Kadi and Al Barakaat International Foundation v Council and Commission, Joined Cases C-402/05 P and C-415/05 P, judgment (3 September 2008).
• Kadi v Commission, Case T-85/09, judgment (30 September 2010).
• Thomas J. Biersteker and Sue E. Eckert, eds., Countering the Financing of Terrorism (Routledge, 2008).
• Michael Levi, 'Combating the Financing of Terrorism: A History and Assessment of the Control of Threat Finance', British Journal of Criminology 50, no. 4 (2010): 650-669.
• Juan C. Zarate, Treasury's War: The Unleashing of a New Era of Financial Warfare (PublicAffairs, 2013).