Averting Terror Funds: New Grounds for Racial Discrimination?

The fight against international terrorism introduced a complicated system for preventing the transfer of terror funds through the official financial sector. This system, based on customer profiling and black-lists of certain countries and entities, raises serious concerns of discrimination and financial exclusion. This chapter examines the UK, EU and international legislation and regulations, as well as case law in order to address the understudied topic of the conflict between de-risking policies and the property rights of individuals. Financial institutions tend to evoke counterterrorist laws in order to justify discriminatory behaviours towards existing or future customers. As a fact, more and more people are found to be affected by such policies all over the world. Especially in the UK immigrants moving out from Africa and the Middle East are usually denied access to financial services on the grounds that their countries of origin present high risks of terrorism. This chapter argues that it is important to adopt an approach able to mitigate negative impacts on individuals’ personal and professional lives without compromising the objective of the fight against terrorist financing.