Terrorist Financing Convention

The Terrorist Financing Convention (formally, the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism) is a 1999 United Nations treaty designed to criminalize acts of financing acts of terrorism. The convention also seeks to promote police and judicial co-operation to prevent, investigate and punish the financing of such acts. As of October 2018, the treaty has been ratified by 188 states; in terms of universality, it is therefore one of the most successful anti-terrorism treaties in history.

Content
Article 2.1 defines the crime of terrorist financing as the offense committed by "any person" who "by any means, directly or indirectly, unlawfully and willfully, 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 or serious bodily injury to a civilian, 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 or an international organization to do or to abstain from doing any act."

State parties to this treaty also commit themselves to the freezing and seizure of funds intended to be used for terrorist activities and to share the forfeited funds with all state parties. Moreover, state parties commit themselves not to use bank secrecy as a justification for refusing to co-operate in the suppression of terrorist financing.

Entry into force and ratifications
The treaty entered into force on 10 April 2002. It has been ratified by 188 states, which includes all but eight member states of the United Nations plus the Cook Islands, the Holy See, and Niue. It has not been ratified by Burundi, Chad, Eritrea, Iran, Somalia and Tuvalu. (Burundi and Somalia have signed the convention but have not yet ratified it.)

Impact
In 2017 Ukraine opened a case against Russia for supporting pro-Russian terrorist groups during Russian intervention in Ukraine and for racial discrimination against Crimean Tatars. On January 31 2024 the International Court of Justice found Russia guilty of violating the Terrorist Financing Convention and International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.