51吃瓜

2021 marks the 20th anniversary of the adoption of Security Council resolution 1373 (2001) and the establishment of the Counter-Terrorism Committee.As part of the year of commemoration, CTED experts reflect on their work. 

Ms. Svetlana Martynova, Senior Legal Officer at the Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED), serves as Coordinator on matters related to countering the financing of terrorism. Before her current role, Ms. Martynova served as Desk Officer for Eastern Europe, South Caucasus and Central Asia. Ms. Martynova has worked at CTED since 2012. This interview has been edited for brevity.

What motivated you to come to the 51吃瓜 and to CTED?

Ms. Martynova: Even as a kid, I was rather passionate about the law. My grandparents used to jokingly call me a prosecutor, which I never became, but international law is something that attracted me the most, and the work of international organizations. My postgraduate studies focused on international human rights, international criminal law, and international organizations, so it was only natural that I should actually apply for positions at such organizations, including, of course, the UN. And I was fortunate enough to be selected quite early on in my career. So after eight years in several roles in international criminal law institutions, including the UN Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, I joined CTED in 2012, first as a Legal Officer with a regional portfolio and now as a Coordinator of CTED’s work on countering the financing of terrorism. Working with Member States and international or regional organizations on countering terrorism and its financing involves a wide range of complex matters and, as such, brings new challenges every day. And a solid background in legal affairs helps tremendously.

What does countering the financing of terrorism involve? Why did the Security Council include it in its resolutions?

Ms. Martynova: Countering the financing of terrorism (CFT) is focused on restricting the movement of funds to terrorist organizations and individual terrorists. Terrorists use various activities to raise funds, as well as to move and conceal them. And it's tricky to detect, and even trickier to prevent, these movements because they can come from legal sources. So you cannot really restrict those. And this can be just abuse of some legitimate businesses, charities, or technologies that are there for legitimate purposes (such as virtual assets, which are now a focus of attention). Or they can be derived from illegal sources, which makes it a little bit easier to track if you are also looking at other crimes. And we're talking here about a wide variety of crimes, including kidnapping for ransom, which is a classic example. But also drug trafficking, weapons trafficking, etc. And even in these cases, the sources can still be disguised through money-laundering. And it's also important to understand that it's a global phenomenon. It really has no boundaries. Money goes across all borders, in cash, but even more so in wire transfers, virtual currencies, etc. 

So CFT policies are focused on halting the movement of funds through these various channels. They’re comprised of a very complex set of measures that involves investigation, analysing suspicious flows, and routine monitoring of vast amounts of data on transactions across different sectors. CFT, in the context of counter-terrorism measures more globally, brings great benefits in terms of preventing terrorist attacks. But it also comes at a certain cost. We also need to look at the issues of privacy, the perception of being under mass surveillance, the high risk of abuse, etc. So that's a quite complex range of issues.

The 1999 International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism is a universal instrument of great importance, but it wasn’t until the adoption of Security Council resolution 1373 (2001) that CFT really took off as a real, global obligation. Since the requirements of resolution 1373 (2001) are “Chapter VII” requirements, there’s no choice but to implement them. And of course there is also the support of the Financial Action Task Force and its work on international AML/CFT standards. So these partners go hand in hand. 

How have CFT requirements evolved over time?

Ms. Martynova: When we started 20 years ago, based on resolution 1373 and the 1999 Convention, we were looking primarily at basic things, such as the criminalization of terrorism financing (because it didn't yet exist), effective freezing mechanisms to stop the flow of funds, and certain more obvious abuses of the banking system or the informal system or cash couriers. So this was the core classic range of CFT norms introduced by resolution 1373. Some years later, we began to observe the movements of foreign terrorist fighters and the financial flows that came with that phenomenon. Obviously, FTFs can’t travel without the money for an air ticket. They receive funds from families, and so on. These could be very small transactions but they are often the ones that allow us to track their movements. So then came a range of Security Council requirements to address the financing of such travel. 

Then we also started, as trends evolved, to look at linkages between terrorist financing and organized crime, which take various forms, depending on the region and depending on how the terrorists are able to operate. There was recently a very informative analysis, for example, of how natural resources are being exploited in several regions of Africa for terrorism-financing purposes. And that involves all sorts of resources beyond those we saw in the Middle East (oil and other more typical sources). So that's a constant evolution, as terrorist move around the globe and search for alternative sources of financing. In recent years, we have of course been paying increasing attention to the new technologies and the risks that come with them, be it mobile payments, virtual assets, crowdfunding, all these newer systems. It's not the evil that came with the new technologies. But as any other instruments, as with wire transfers in the past, they are also vulnerable to abuse by criminals, including terrorists.

And I think that the COVID-19 pandemic has illustrated, and maybe even exacerbated, certain vulnerabilities. And I can give two examples. One is the shift towards contactless and digital payments, but there’s also digital onboarding for financial services. This is, of course primarily linked to evolution and progress but under the pandemic conditions it also allows you to make payments or obtain services without exposing yourself to the risk of catching COVID-19. But, with that, came all the impact on the ability to actually perform client due diligence measures or just detect abnormalities. And in that context progress comes hand in hand with vulnerabilities. So what's important is really the responsible use of new technologies. And a great deal of work has been done on these so-called Digital IDs, which would be protected yet allow for greater inclusivity and exposure to services. And one more example that comes to mind in the COVID context is that of pandemic-related fraud schemes whose proceeds go to terrorism financing. And we've seen those examples evolve.

Where we are now is that international standards actually require parallel financial investigations in all terrorism cases and we're going even beyond that and calling on Member States to look at potential links with terrorism financing when investigating other crimes (such as human trafficking, drug trafficking, etc.). So, this is a huge evolution because if you don't look for terrorism financing, you won't find it. But, if you proactively integrate it as part of your routine, then you understand it much better, and you can respond to it more effectively.

What progress has been achieved? Do you feel like the work you've done to promote CFT and counter-terrorism has made an impact? 

Ms. Martynova: Well, the progress on CFT is not attributable to CTED alone, of course. As I said at the beginning, it's a joint effort. There’s quite a robust framework of international standards and also quite a number of partners of organizations that work with Member States on this, including the Financial Action Task Force. But what I think is undeniable and specific to CFT is that progress, over these last 20 years, went from zero to the establishment of AML/CFT frameworks that are developed and constantly enhanced in practically all jurisdictions. There are very few that are non-cooperative. And those where we still see deficiencies are constantly working on improving them. So it's really something that, again, went from zero to a whole new phenomenon and a very robust set of rules, but also operational measures, strategic measures that did not exist before at all. Now, if I were to speak about the specific work of CTED that I would like to highlight, the first example that I would mention is our global initiative, implemented over the years with global but also regional partners, aimed at enhancing Member States’ capacity to comply with their asset-freezing obligations. It was very, very rewarding to see how just having the Member States in the room and discussing their own experiences helps them understand what it is that they're required to do and how to do them in a smart, efficient, and compliant way. 

Another example I would mention is a multi-year project that was launched under CTED’s leadership, but within the framework of the then CTITF Working Group on Terrorism Financing, on tackling the financing of terrorism. It was aimed at raising awareness in developing a common approach to preventing the abuse of NPOs for terrorism financing. It was a global initiative that included regional event, and took several years. One advantage of that project, I think, was the involvement, in almost all of those events, of the NPO sector itself. And that was another example of seeing them being in the room for the first time and understanding what it is that we want from them. It's because we're trying to prevent them being abused by terrorists without them even knowing or even realizing that they're at risk. So seeing them as part of that dialogue enriched our understanding of the issues but also helped with their buy-in., They don't want to be abused by terrorists. They want to work in a safe environment. So understanding what part they can play in the process was really an important element in that whole initiative. And another thing I’d mention is of course the possibility for us, as representatives of the Security Council Counter-Terrorism Committee, to insist, throughout these initiatives, on the need for all these measures to be implemented in a compliant way (that is, compliant not only with CFT requirements, but also with other international law requirements and human rights). Back then, I don't think there were a lot of international or regional organizations that would have the mandate to do so. 

And one more example I’d mention, I think, probably also relates to the previous question about evolution. Twenty years ago there was no CFT framework and no criminalization of terrorism financing. Then we imposed the criminalization requirement but we saw that everybody was struggling. It was an unknown animal and you didn't know how to establish the elements of the crime. (Moreover, why bother, if you can just prosecute for terrorism itself? Why bother also looking at this “financial flows” complication?) And where we are now is that international standards actually require parallel financial investigations in all terrorism cases and we're going even beyond that and calling on Member States to look at potential links with terrorism financing when investigating other crimes (such as human trafficking, drug trafficking, etc.). So, this is a huge evolution because if you don't look for terrorism financing, you won't find it. But, if you proactively integrate it as part of your routine, then you understand it much better, and you can respond to it more effectively.

What’s new about Security Council resolution 2462 (2019)? 

Ms. Martynova: As I mentioned before: in resolution 1373, we had classic, core CFT measures such as criminalization and asset-freezing. And then as things evolved, there were other resolutions such as resolution 2178 (2014) on FTF travel financing, and quite a few resolutions on the linkages between human trafficking and terrorism financing. And then it was only a matter of time before there was a need to consolidate all that together with the FATF standards and references to the 1999 Convention. So, resolution 2462, adopted in March 2019, is not a huge novelty in itself, except that it was the first and only that united all the different CFT-related requirements into one consolidated document, with a strategic approach, with the right order in it that started with risk analysis, that then had all the elements of enhancing integration of financial intelligence, international cooperation, and information exchange on financial investigations. All of those measures into one orderly system. And it also emphasized the risk-based approach to monitoring and supervising and implementing all these measures, which is particularly important to sectors like the NPO sector and new technologies (which again, are all legitimate products and services). But if the assessment is that they're particularly vulnerable to abuse for terrorism purposes, including terrorism financing, then those sectors need to have an extra bit of support or preventative measures. So for the Security Council I’d say that it’s a novelty. It was already implemented in the FATF standards but, for the Council, it's a novelty. Of course, the issue of the interplay between CFT and international humanitarian assistance, which has also been introduced by that resolution, is a novelty for everybody. I think the main merit of the resolution is its comprehensiveness and cohesiveness and the logical order of how things are presented.

What challenges remain?

Ms. Martynova: Firstly, because CFT is so technical and involves very specialized products or services that are not easily understood by, say, law enforcement agencies that are not working on these issues, it's a very specific expertise that’s required. So it's harder, probably, to keep pace with everything that's going on in this field. The second challenge (and I think this is common to most counter-terrorism efforts) is to enhance cooperation between Member States and strengthen their political will to do so for the right reasons. And the third challenge (and one I mentioned earlier) is the range of issues relating to safeguarding human rights and preventing possible abuses. This is not uncommon for other counter-terrorism measures. With all the stigma around CFT measures, the misconceptions, and the instances of real abuses, it's also important to emphasize the safeguards that are actually part of the international standards and to recall that (especially in the Security Council) there’s a clear call to ensure compliance with human rights, humanitarian law, and refugee law.