UN

The Vienna Convention of 20 December 1988 against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances was the first contribution of the United Nations (UN) to the fight against money laundering. It incriminated the laundering of the proceeds from drug trafficking.

In 1997 the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) adopted the Global Program against Money Laundering (GPML) in view of stimulating the legal, administrative and judicial implementation of anti-money laundering mechanisms. It also created the United Nations Offshore Forum that urges the countries and territories concerned to observe the international criteria on financial regulation and money laundering when they provide international financial services.

On 14 December 2000 the UN adopted the Convention on Transnational Organised Crime that incriminates money laundering and contains measures on preventing use of certain sectors for money laundering purposes.

The United Nations is also involved in combating terrorism and terrorist financing. Since its creation multilateral disarmament and arms limitation are the main goals in efforts to maintain peace and international security. The organisation’s main goals are to reduce and then eliminate nuclear weapons, destroy chemical weapons and strengthen bans on biological weapons.

Using resolutions 1373 (2001) and 1624 (2005) the Counter-Terrorism Committee aims at strengthening the capacity of Member States of the United Nations to prevent any terrorist acts on their territory or beyond.