King's College London

Proliferation financing (PF) is the act of providing funds or financial services which are used for the manufacture, acquisition, possession, development, export, trans-shipment, brokering, transport, transfer, stockpiling or use of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons and their means of delivery and related materials (including both technologies and dual use goods used for non-legitimate purposes), in contravention of national laws or, where applicable, international obligations.

Implementation of counter proliferation finance (CPF) measures touches a wide array of public and private sector stakeholders, who must work together to understand and implement the obligations of the non-proliferation UNSCRs and to prevent sanctions from being evaded. Further, to implement requirements established by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the public sector stakeholders from both regulatory and law-enforcement communities must develop a more effective national coordination mechanism and supervisory regime to counter proliferation finance.

One of the unique aspects of CPF is the wide range of backgrounds and professions represented among stakeholders. They include experts hailing from the fields of security, finance with a focus on combating illicit financing, law, banking, and regulation, as well as international donors aimed at developing capacity of beneficiary states. The diversity of this community has undoubtedly advanced the development of the current standards for combating proliferation finance. Although this community can be considered an epistemic community in academic terms, this diverse group has never formally convened or identified itself as such.

The primary objective of the Observatoire will be to bring together relevant proliferation finance experts and stakeholders and to offer them the opportunity, on a voluntary basis, to exchange about CPF implementation partner countries.