Civil Society Organisations and the Framing of United Nations Counter-Terrorism Financing Regulations

Terrorist financing has, for a long time, been an issue that has generated severe contentions and deliberations amongst governmental and non-governmental discussions. At various fora, the potential threat by civil society organisations (CSOs), especially conduits for laundering money to or on behalf of terrorist organisations. This chapter examines the UN regime against the financing of terrorism by specifically understanding and discussing the roles (or not) of CSOs in the framing of these international counter-financial terrorism frameworks. The underlying logic of countering terrorist financing is, as Goede puts it, “stopping terrorism starts with stopping the money.” As straightforward and easy as this may sound, actualising it, in reality, has been a herculean task. While the popular view of national governments’ actions is traced to the alleged culpability of CSOs to terrorist financing, other issues are at play.