TEHRAN – Iran will apply for a membership of the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism if the Guardian Council gives the green light.

Iran’s Majlis (parliament) approved the bill on Saturday, Mehr News Agency reported.
If approved by the Guardian Council, the Islamic Republic of Iran would become a member of the Eurasian Group (EAG) and EGMONT. The country will also implement international standards and requirements issued by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), and International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism,

According to IRNA, the Terrorist Financing Convention bill, if finalized, can also help ease of restrictions imposed on Iran’s financial institutions.

“The Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism bill” was submitted to the parliament in April 2010 after the approval of the government.

Upon the approval in the parliament in July of the same year, the bill was sent to the specialized committees, including committees on justice, national security and foreign policy, and economic development for discussion.

Several expert meetings with the presence of the executive members of the Supreme Council for fighting money laundering held in the mentioned committees resulted in the approval of the bill in the parliament on 8 February 2012.

The bill was then reviewed by the Guardian Council and returned to the Parliament for “non-compliance with paragraph 2 of Article 158 of the Constitution”. And the Parliament sent the bill to the judiciary for more investigations.

In this regard, the Ministers of Economy and Finance and Justice and the chairman of the Central Bank corresponded with the judiciary about the need for accelerating the approval of the bill.

Finally after numerous correspondence, in a meeting held in February 2015 with the presence of judiciary experts, experts on laws and regulations, representatives from the financial data center, the suppression of money laundering center and the Central Bank, the bill was discussed and referred back to the Majlis with amendments.

Accordingly, the Bill was referred to the Parliament’s Justice and Legal Committee. After several meetings participated by members of the Supreme Council for fighting money laundering, the Ministry of Finance, and the Central Bank, the reforms were finalized in the related Commission and the bill was finally approved in the Parliament on 31 July 2015.

The Terrorist Financing Convention (formally, the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism) is a 1999 United Nations treaty designed to criminalize acts of financing terrorism.

The convention seeks to promote police and judicial co-operation to prevent, investigate and punish those found guilty of financing terrorists.

In terms of universality, it is therefore one of the most successful anti-terrorism treaties in history.

Article 2.1 of the treaty defines the crime of terrorist financing as the offense committed by ‘any person’ who ‘by any means, directly or indirectly, unlawfully and willfully, provides or collects funds with the intention that they should be used or in the knowledge that they are to be used, in full or in part, in order to carry out’ an act ‘intended to cause death or serious bodily injury to a civilian, or to any other person not taking an active part in the hostilities in a situation of armed conflict, when the purpose of such act, by its nature or context, is to intimidate a population, or to compel a government or an international organization to do or to abstain from doing any act.’

State parties to the treaty commit themselves to the freezing and seizure of funds intended to be used for terrorist activities and to share the forfeited funds with all state parties. Moreover, state parties commit themselves not to use bank secrecy as a justification for refusing to co-operate in the suppression of terrorist financing.

The treaty entered into force on 10 April 2002. It has been ratified by 187 states, which includes all but nine member states of the United Nations plus the Cook Islands, the Holy See, and Niue. It has not been ratified by Burundi, Chad, Eritrea, Iran, Lebanon, Somalia, South Sudan, Tuvalu, and Zambia. (Burundi and Somalia have signed the convention but have not ratified yet).