International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism

The 1999 United Nations

United Nations

The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...

International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism (Terrorist Financing Convention) is a multilateral treaty

Treaty

A treaty is an express agreement under international law entered into by actors in international law, namely sovereign states and international organizations. A treaty may also be known as an agreement, protocol, covenant, convention or exchange of letters, among other terms...

open to the ratification

Ratification

Ratification is a principal's approval of an act of its agent where the agent lacked authority to legally bind the principal. The term applies to private contract law, international treaties, and constitutionals in federations such as the United States and Canada.- Private law :In contract law, the...

of all states designed to criminalize acts thos who finance terrorist activities and to promote police and judicial cooperation to prevent, investigate and punish financing those acts.

Article 2.1 defines the crime

Crime

Crime is the breach of rules or laws for which some governing authority can ultimately prescribe a conviction...

of terrorist financing as the offence committed by "any person" who "by any means, directly or indirectly, unlawfully and wilfully, provides or collects funds with the intention that they should be used or in the knowledge that they are to be used, in full or in part, in order to carry out" an act "intended to cause death

Death

Death is the permanent termination of the biological functions that sustain a living organism. Phenomena which commonly bring about death include old age, predation, malnutrition, disease, and accidents or trauma resulting in terminal injury....

or serious bodily injury

Injury

-By cause:*Traumatic injury, a body wound or shock produced by sudden physical injury, as from violence or accident*Other injuries from external physical causes, such as radiation injury, burn injury or frostbite*Injury from infection...

to a civilian

Civilian

A civilian under international humanitarian law is a person who is not a member of his or her country's armed forces or other militia. Civilians are distinct from combatants. They are afforded a degree of legal protection from the effects of war and military occupation...

, or to any other person not taking an active part in the hostilities in a situation of armed conflict, when the purpose of such act, by its nature or context, is to intimidate a population, or to compel a government

Government

Government refers to the legislators, administrators, and arbitrators in the administrative bureaucracy who control a state at a given time, and to the system of government by which they are organized...

or an international organization

International organization

An intergovernmental organization, sometimes rendered as an international governmental organization and both abbreviated as IGO, is an organization composed primarily of sovereign states , or of other intergovernmental organizations...

to do or to abstain from doing any act."

State parties to this treaty commit themselves also to freezing and seize of funds intended to be used for terrorist activities, to share the forfeited funds. Moreover, States commit themselves not to used Bank secrecy

Bank secrecy

Bank secrecy is a legal principle in some jurisdictions under which banks are not allowed to provide to authorities personal and account information about their customers unless certain conditions apply...

as a justification for refusing to cooperate.

For the text of the convention see: 1999 International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism (Terrorist Financing Convention)

See also

Further reading