April 27, 2020
A new study coauthored by Ian J. Stewart, CNS Washington office executive director, aims to examine why most governments appear to attach less importance to countering proliferation finance than they do to countering money laundering or terrorist financing. The paper was coauthored by Andrea Viski and Jonathan Brewer and appeared in the Journal of Financial Crime ahead-of-print.
The paper examines this question from a number of perspectives including a definitional perspective, a national regulatory perspective, and a private sector implementation perspective. It finds that there are presently significant gaps in counter proliferation finance implementation at the national level, with follow-on implications for private sector compliance. One key finding is that most governments do not address the issue of proliferation finance as distinct from other forms of financial crime such as terrorist financing or money laundering.
It identifies practical opportunities for improved financial sector implementation of counterproliferation finance controls, but states must do more to meet their obligations for improvements to be realized. The risk of not doing so is that the financial system will continue to be misused to finance the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.The study seeks to fill a gap in existing academic literature on the question of why proliferation finance receives less attention than other forms of financial crime. The study builds on original research undertaken by the authors including the typologies of proliferation finance, which were later incorporated into an updated Financial Action Task Force report on this topic, as well as events organized by the authors to explore the topic of proliferation finance implementation with governments and the private sector.Read the paper.
