On November 20, Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson delivered remarks on behalf of the Secretary General to a special meeting of the United Nations Security Council’s Counter-Terrorism Committee (CTC) in New York. In his remarks, Deputy Secretary-General Jan Eliasson stressed the importance of continuing global efforts to cut off all funding for terrorism. He also stressed the need to uphold United Nations values, including respect for human rights and the rule of law, in the process. “As in other areas of counter-terrorism, when adopting and implementing measures against terrorist financing, we need to bear in mind the importance of respecting human rights and the rule of law. This is necessary not only to preserve our moral authority but also to avoid fuelling grievances which terrorists exploit to justify their unjustifiable actions, to gain safe havens in different communities and to recruit new affiliates,” he said.

The prevention and suppression of financing terrorism is one of the core requirements of resolution 1373 (pdf). The Council adopted this resolution in the wake of the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States. The resolution called for all countries to criminalize terrorism, to deny terrorists access to financial resources, and to prevent terrorists from crossing borders, among other measures. It also set up the CTC. The CTC is made up of Council members and tasked with monitoring and analyzing the information provided on counterterrorism efforts by Member States. Participants at the Council meeting also discussed the revised standards of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and their implications for preventing funding of terrorism. The intergovernmental FATF has developed a series of recommendations that are recognized as the international standard for combating the laundering of money and the financing of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction.