International Cooperation's/Treaties - Compliance Commission

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) was founded by the Governments of the G7 leading industrialized Nations in 1989.  As an inter-governmental body, it develops and promotes global standards and policies, to combat money laundering. The mandate of the FATF is to set standards and to promote effective implementation of legal, regulatory and operational measures for combating money laundering, terrorist financing and the financing of proliferation, and other related threats to the integrity of the international financial system. In collaboration with other international stakeholders, the FATF also works to identify national-level vulnerabilities with the aim of protecting the international financial system from misuse. Further information on the FATF can be found at www.fatf-gafi.org.

The FATF has developed forty (40) Recommendations (www.fatf-gafi.org/publications/fatfrecommendations) to address money laundering and combat terrorist financing, as well as the financing of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The FATF Recommendations set out a comprehensive and consistent framework of measures which countries should implement in order to combat money laundering and terrorist financing, as well as the financing of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Countries have diverse legal, administrative and operational frameworks and different financial systems, and so cannot all take identical measures to counter these threats.

The FATF Recommendations, therefore, set an international standard, which countries should implement through measures adapted to their particular circumstances (See details of the 40 Recommendations).

The Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF)

The CFATF is an inter-governmental task force, organized as part of the efforts of the FATF to establish regional style bodies patterned after the FATF, which follows and ensures its Members comply with the FATF Recommendations. The CFATF came into existence as a result of three regional meetings of Governments in 1990, 1992 and 1993. There are twenty-five (25) member countries of the CFATF group.

The main objective of the CFATF is to achieve effective implementation of, and compliance with the FATF recommendations to prevent and control money laundering and to combat the financing of terrorism.It does not issue standards on its own. The CFATF is one of the eight (8) Bodies in the Global Network on Money Laundering (ML) and Financing of Terrorism (FT) around the world. Each body covers different geographic regions.

At the 1992 meeting the Kingston Declaration called for the establishment of a Regional Secretariat. The Secretariat was established during early 1994, in Trinidad and Tobago, and funded by the FATF donor countries. The Chair of CFATF is rotated annually amongst its members. Further information on the CFATF and its work can be reviewed at  www.cfatf@cfatf.org.

The Compliance Commission endorses the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) Standards, which comprise the 40 Recommendations and their Interpretive Notes. The Bahamas is one of the founding members of the CFATF. The CFATF conducts an ongoing programme of the Mutual Evaluation of Members. The last CFATF Mutual Evaluation (MER) of The Bahamas was conducted December 2015. The Report was published in July 2017. A copy of the report may be seen at www.cfatf-gafic.org/index.php/documents/mutual-evaluation-reports.

TREATIES:

Part lll section 14 of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 2018 (the Act) states that a person or terrorist entity who in or outside The Bahamas carries out an act that constitutes an offence under or defined in any of the treaties listed in the Schedule of the Act; or any other act as outlined in the legislation, commits an offence of terrorism and on conviction on information where death ensues and where that act would have constituted the offence of murder or treason, where prior to or after the commencement of this Act, may be sentenced to death: or in any other case, is liable to imprisonment for life.

LIST OF TREATIES RELATIVE TO TERRORISM

  1. Convention on offences and certain other Acts committed on Board Aircraft signed at Tokyo 14th September, 1963.
  2. Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Seizure of Aircraft, done at the Hague on 16th December, 1970.
  3. Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Civil Aviation, done at Montreal on 23rd September, 1971.
  4. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes against Internationally Protected Persons including Diplomatic Agents, adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 14th December, 1973.
  5. International Convention against the taking of Hostages, adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations 17th December, 1979.
  6. Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material signed at Vienna on 3rd March, 1980.
  7. Protocol for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts of Violence at Airports Serving International Civil Aviation, supplementary to the Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Civil Aviation, signed at Montreal on 24th February, 1988.
  8. Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Maritime Navigation, done at Rome on 10th March, 1988.
  9. Protocol for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Fixed Platforms located on the Continental Shelf, done at Rome on 10th March, 1988.
  10. Convention on the Marking of Plastic Explosives for the Purpose of Detection, signed at Montreal on 1st March, 1991.
  11. International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings, adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 15th December, 1997.
  12. International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 9th December, 1999.
  13. The Biological Weapons Convention entered into force on 26th March 1975.; and
  14. The Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) adopted by the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva on 3rd September 1992.