Since the 9/11 attacks, there has been a significant increase in attacks attributable to violent extremists motivated by racial, ethnic, and anti-authority sentiment. Understanding how the finances connected to these extremists are raised, used, moved, and stored is vitally important to designing strategies to prevent and counter extremist violence, no matter the ideological, religious, idiosyncratic, racial, or ethnic motivations. This brief examines the online financing and support systems associated with U.S. anti-authority and racially or ethnically motivated (AAREM) violent extremists. It focuses on the threat as manifest in the United States and to a lesser extent the transnational dimensions of AAREM violent extremist financing. Clear linkages between U.S. and transnational violent extremists, especially within white supremacist and neo-Nazi circles, also extend to the world of financing. It concludes with several policy solutions to better combat the financial support systems of AAREM violent extremists.
Far-Right Online Financing and How to Counter It
Rapid advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning present both challenges and opportunities for terrorism and counterterrorism efforts. Violent extremists and other hostile actors can increasingly exploit emerging AI technologies to sow disinformation and exacerbate polarization, target humans and their information systems, manipulate data sets, and attack critical infrastructure. At the same time, the embrace of AI and machine learning by states in the service of counterterrorism has the potential to exacerbate concerns about profiling and human rights. This brief examines these threats and the ways that international organizations, including the United Nations, can and should protect against the misapplication of these technologies by states and nonstate actors alike.
The recent revelations in the Panama and Pandora papers, as well as several smaller leaks, have exposed how anonymous shell companies and the use of secrecy jurisdictions can shield wealth amounting to billions of U.S. dollars and facilitate criminal activity. The scandals exposed a system that allowed for the shifting of taxable wealth to shell companies in low-tax jurisdictions, as well as the concealment of legitimate and illegitimate assets from authorities.
This brief draws on a review of the practice of obtaining beneficial ownership information in the United States, the United Kingdom, and several countries in Africa and South Asia. It examines the existing approaches to collecting beneficial ownership information and the related challenges that practitioners experience. It concludes with recommendations for policymakers and regulators on strengthening the collection and maintenance of beneficial ownership information as a primary tool for the detection and prevention of money laundering, tax evasion, corruption, fraud, and other criminal activity.
This brief presents key recommendations for improving civil society engagement in UN counterterrorism and preventing and countering violent extremism (P/CVE) efforts. It provides concrete steps that the United Nations and its member states can take to better engage civil society and offers a blueprint for civil society to advocate for and assert itself more consistently and effectively within the UN counterterrorism architecture, policies, and programs.
The recommendations are based on wide-ranging consultations with individuals representing diverse civil society organizations, governments, and UN entities as well a comparative analysis of relevant mechanisms for engagement between civil society and other multilateral bodies.
The Global Center is grateful to the many partners who participated in the consultations and the Government of Switzerland for its financial support. We are especially grateful to the members of the project’s advisory council.
In recent years, the growth of digital financial services, and more particularly mobile money, has been at the center of financial inclusion initiatives in various countries, notably in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Financial inclusion is featured as a prominent enabler of the Sustainable Development Goals, yet various constraints and barriers prevent eligible adults from accessing digital financial services. Policy and regulatory factors affect the environment in which these services are provided, practical barriers affect an individual’s ability to access and utilize digital financial services, and social and cultural factors affect the customer’s adoption and usage of and trust in digital financial services or its providers. This brief explores the barriers and constraints that hinder digital financial inclusion efforts in jurisdictions that have unbanked populations. It offers recommendations to policymakers and financial sector supervisors on adopting a risk-based approach that overcomes these challenges and enables expanded provision of mobile money and other digital financial services to realize financial inclusion objectives.
Despite a growing volume of research on foreign terrorist fighters (FTFs), there remains limited publicly available research on the financial footprints of FTFs and the facilitation networks that support them. This typology report, produced in partnership between the Asia/Pacific Group on Money Laundering and the Global Center, examines what is known and unknown regarding the financial profiles of FTFs connected to Southeast Asia and explores the collection and utilization of FTF-related financial intelligence in the region. Persistent challenges in detecting FTF financial patterns underscore the critical importance of partnership between law enforcement, intelligence agencies, border control, and financial intelligence units.
This policy brief examines the 2021 renewal of the mandate of the UN Security Council’s Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED) and seven key issues Security Council members must grapple with as part of the renewal: (1) assessments, (2) facilitation of technical assistance, (3) research and analysis, (4) partnerships, (5) mandate expansion, (6) human rights, and (7) monitoring and evaluation.
To support Security Council members in their reconsideration of CTED’s mandate, the Global Center and the International Peace Institute undertook an extensive research and consultation process. A broad range of stakeholders were consulted, including current CTC members and other UN member states, UN representatives, and civil society actors. Information was gathered through a widely distributed survey, bilateral interviews, three focus-group discussions, and two workshops held on 28 July and 3 November 2021. Along with providing analysis of the implementation of CTED’s mandate, the intention was to provide an informal Track II setting for member states and other stakeholders to engage on priorities for the mandate renewal and to solicit input into the formal negotiation process from underrepresented parties, including civil society. This brief outlines findings and recommendations for the renewal of CTED’s mandate, building on this research and consultation process.
The 20th anniversary of the September 11th attacks compels the international community to take stock of the past two decades of counterterrorism policy and ask: Have these efforts made us safer, and at what cost?
This opinion piece in The Hill penned by executive director Eelco Kessels reflects on the twenty years since September 11th to underscore the urgency of restoring human rights and centering civil society in global security efforts.
The threat of terrorism today is more diverse, diffuse, and decentralized than ever before. At the same time, the growth of counterterrorism has spurned the unraveling of hard-won human rights protections and democratic norms and the shrinking of civic space. There is no evidence indicating that these restrictions reduce terrorist attacks; quite the opposite, they may in fact help galvanize radicalization and recruitment.
Twenty years after 9/11, the upcoming 76th Session of the United Nations General Assembly in September is sure to be a time for reflection on UN and global efforts to counter terrorism and prevent the spread of violent extremism. However, insights for the upcoming discussions can already be gleaned from the recent negotiations and seventh review of the UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy. The seventh review resolution, adopted by the General Assembly on June 30, shows both the progress that has been made since 2001 and reveals the many challenges that still lay ahead. In this Just Security article, Eelco Kessels and Melissa Lefas argue that while the adoption of the seventh review resolution demonstrates a commitment to consensus, a closer inspection reveals significant cracks in the global approach.
This brief explores how civil society is included in national frameworks to prevent and counter violent extremism at different stages of the policy cycle, including in design, development, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation. In doing so, the analysis contributes to a stocktaking of how international recommendations on civil society inclusion are reflected in such documents. In analyzing how national frameworks have included civil society, this brief identifies positive examples that may be useful to national authorities in considering the range of ways in which future frameworks can draw on the valuable contribution of civil society.