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Trafficking¹ in human beings is gross.² It constitutes one of the most egregious violations of human rights.³ The vile nature of human trafficking is also hinged on the fact that it commodifies human beings. Hence its categorisation is modern slavery.⁴ So much of trafficking activities follow the pathways5 of other transnational forms of organised crimes and irregular cross-border movement of people.6 In response to this egregious crime, several international, regional and country laws and instruments have been used or proposed for combatting human trafficking.7 These instruments forbid trafficking in human persons and provide several preventive measures, prosecution of perpetrators and protection of victims of human trafficking.8 The number of state parties to the United Nations Protocol to prevent suppress and punish trafficking in persons, especially women and children, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (the Palermo Protocol), demonstrates the global commitment to combatting human trafficking. However, the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on legal systems, and the capacity of both state and private institutions to combat human trafficking, has added a knotty twist to the global problem of human trafficking. This essay looks at the trends of human trafficking in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. It also highlights international law and policy approaches that state parties and civil society organisations should adopt to counteract the changes and sustain the fight against human trafficking. Thus, the essay contributes to updating the legal and policy approaches to combat human trafficking in this era.

This paper aims to focus on the concept of money laundering and explores the evolution and expansion of criminalization of predicate offences to the money laundering within the international anti-money laundering (AML) regime over the time. It proposes how to limit the size and scope of predicate offences in designing a balanced legal definition.

This paper opted a content analysis focussed on the criminalization aspect of offences to money laundering in the international AML regime under the United Nations Conventions (Vienna, Palermo and Corruption Convention) and Financial Action Task Force Standards.

This paper provides how the criminalization of money laundering has evolved and its definition expanded over the time. The international definition is widely drafted with wide range of predicate offences from proceeds of drug money to corruption, including terrorist financing and terrorist acts; however, the two phenomena – money laundering and terrorist financing are quiet distinct apart. This continual expansion of predicate offences quite leads legality issues such as over-criminalization and conflict with principles of criminal law. This paper suggests an approach to limit the size and scope of predicate offences to money laundering.

This paper includes implications for the development of a balanced approach in defining predicate offences through a qualitative limitation approach consistent with the minimalist theory of penalization of criminal law.

This paper attains an identified issue how the legal definition of the money laundering offence can be improved while considering rule of law and principles of criminal law concerns.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the international standards for establishing national jurisdiction over the transnational crimes of money laundering and bribery and identify challenges to the adoption of those standards by different states in practice.

This paper, first, defines transnational money laundering and transnational bribery; then, it examines the legal bases and principles on which a state can claim criminal jurisdiction over these offences. This paper also discusses the application of jurisdictional conditions in a transnational context and how to deal with the problems arising from national claim of jurisdiction over these offences, for example, jurisdictional concurrence.

This paper argues that when the jurisdictional concurrence occurs, the involved states should consult one another by taking into account a number of relevant factors and take the “centre of gravity” approach to deciding which state or forum should prosecute eventually. States less able to establish jurisdiction over the offences are often those which have a weak legal basis and/or insufficient resources.

To the authors’ knowledge, this article would be the good guidance on how a state could claim jurisdiction over the offences of transnational money laundering and transnational bribery.

The purpose of this study is to analyse the challenges in devising a suitable formulation to determine whether a person had reasonable grounds to believe that property dealt with represented the proceeds of an indictable crime in the context of money laundering offences. The paper also examines the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal’s recent formulation in HKSAR v. Yeung Ka Sing, Carson (decided July 2016) and evaluates international standards.

The methodology adopted is partly a technical analysis of the various interpretations of “having reasonable grounds to believe” alongside a comparative approach drawing on international standards of the mens rea threshold and the position in the UK.

The findings are that the Court of Final Appeal’s formulation of “having reasonable grounds to believe” is the best possible outcome given the confines of the statutory provisions. The study confirms that the threshold set by the Court of Final appeal surpasses international standards; however, it argues that current international standards are in need of review.

This paper offers insight into the latest mens rea threshold of “having reasonable grounds to believe” in the context of Hong Kong’s anti-money laundering laws and compares international standards of the mens rea threshold. The discussion is of value to a wide audience both in Hong Kong and globally. It aims to provide guidelines to legal practitioners, law enforcement personnel, persons in the private and public sectors, academics and members of the public. This paper also seeks to provoke discussion as to whether international standards on the mens rea threshold should be reviewed with a view to strengthening international cooperation on the prevention of money laundering.

This study aims to identify the sources of laundered money in Iran and the destinations to which it is transferred, independently verified by auditors. Based on such data, the study aims to develop a simple model of endogenous and exogenous factors facilitating money laundering in developing countries, which can inform domestic and international legislative and regulatory responses.

Questionnaires were sent to Iranian certified public accountants who worked for auditing firms in 2019 and who have encountered suspected money laundering during their work with clients.

The government and public officials are the primary sources of money laundering activity in Iran. The main destinations of laundered funds are investments abroad, gold, foreign currencies, real estate and purchases of luxury goods. Domestic legislation, while bearing similarities with that found in other jurisdictions such as the UK and the USA, is flawed in several ways, including an inability to determine beneficial ownership of funds and weak enforcement.

Because of international sanctions and the prevailing political situation, it is difficult to obtain data for money laundering and other financial crimes in Iran. The data obtained is of importance to international bodies in understanding the nature of money laundering in Iran, and how to negotiate in the future to address mutual concerns. Given the country’s perceived high association with money laundering, the data obtained is of value in identifying the specific characteristics of the problem.

The purpose of this paper is to determine whether anti‐money laundering measures are capable of providing a solution to the growing problem of public sector corruption in Iraq and, if so, the extent to which changes are required to the current Iraqi AML regime to enhance its effectiveness against such corruption.

This paper will initially explore the growing problem of public sector corruption in Iraq and the measures taken to address such corruption. Subsequently, the corruption‐money laundering relationship and the ability of AML measures based on prevailing international standards to serve as an anti‐corruption tool will be analysed. Finally, the current Iraqi AML regime will be examined to observe whether and to what extent changes are required to enhance its effectiveness against public sector corruption.

Considering the widely acknowledged nexus between corruption and money laundering, a robust AML regime can be effectively utilised by Iraq to combat endemic public sector corruption. This regime must involve a system where financial institutions at their own expense monitor transactions and file suspicious transaction reports with the Iraqi Money Laundering Reporting Office. This, in turn, must identify cases from those suspicious transaction reports that require further investigation by Iraqi anti‐corruption bodies and other law enforcement authorities, who should be empowered to investigate, freeze, seize and confiscate the suspected corrupt proceeds. Such a regime would provide a clear avenue for the obtaining of financial intelligence capable of exposing corruption, thereby addressing the fundamental issue presently encountered by Iraqi anti‐corruption bodies. Amendments are, however, needed to Iraqi anti‐money laundering laws to enhance their effectiveness in combating public sector corruption. Most importantly, financial institutions must be required to apply enhanced customer due diligence measures to domestic politically exposed persons.

This paper is a result of a remote analysis of material published in relation to the subject matter of the paper. Local and regional analysis (e.g. including interviews with the relevant agencies) would be required to confirm the practicality of the propositions made in the paper. Further, the draft version of the revised Iraqi anti‐money laundering law was not examined in an in depth manner due to the uncertainty in its status, including, in particular, whether it has been submitted to the Council of Representatives for approval.

Although the topics of corruption in Iraq, the Iraqi AML regime and the corruption‐money laundering relationship have been the subject of academic analysis, the related topics have not collectively been examined to determine whether, and to what extent, the Iraqi AML regime can address the rapidly growing problem of public sector corruption in Iraq. Accordingly, the findings in this paper will be of interest to Iraqi lawmakers, Iraqi law enforcement agencies, Iraqi financial institutions and investors in Iraq, particularly in the oil and gas industry.

The purpose of this study is to examine Iran’s anti-money laundering (AML) system from a legal and criminal perspective and to understand the obstacles for international cooperation and the extent to which it aligns with financial action task force (FATF) standards. In this regard, three aspects are examined, namely, enforcement and guarantees of preventive measures, penalty for ML offences and the burden of proof.

This subject is examined through the legal–criminal perspective, which concentrates on the effectiveness of legal measures in tackling criminal issues by focusing on criminal law. The legal–criminal viewpoint considers criminal behaviour as a breach of societal norms and strives to combat it through legal channels.

Iran’s AML laws and regulations are partially compliant with the financial action task force (FATF) recommendations. However, the main obstacle is not the lack of sufficient laws, rather the lack of proper implementation of these laws. In addition, there are foundational shortages, such as the absence of a national risk document to guide an action based on current risks.

No comprehensive study has analysed Iran’s AML laws, referring to the three main aspects of enforcement and guarantees of preventive measures, penalties for ML offenses and the burden of proof. In general, there are few research papers on Iran’s AML laws owing to Iran’s high ranking in ML/TF. However, analysing Iran’s regulations can be helpful in taking a step towards effective international AML practices.

This paper aims to explore the underlying problem of tackling money laundering, namely, the difficulty of enforcing international laws and whether this is a problem which is too great to overcome in practice.

A doctrinal approach is used to discuss international anti-money laundering (AML) laws and question whether money laundering can be truly regarded as an international crime. A comparative approach with case studies of corruption in financial institutions illustrates the problems which law enforcement might encounter. The advantages and disadvantages of tackling money laundering will be highlighted to elucidate both the negative impacts of the crime and the reasons why some states may not be tackling money laundering as forcefully as they could.

Uniformity of AML laws among different countries may deter criminals from laundering money. The ratification of the Vienna Convention can help to facilitate uniformity of legal rules. States need robust domestic laws to tackle money laundering. Money laundering is an international crime, although not always a specific crime in international law. Moreover, it is generally advantageous to consider money laundering to be a specific crime under international law.

The article questions the effectiveness of current AML laws by examining the foundations of international law. Suggestions as to how uniformity can be achieved are given. A comparative approach is also used to demonstrate the extent of the crime, weaknesses in companies’ regulatory regimes and how each State responds to money laundering. The comparison also reveals State-specific issues which fuel money laundering. Moreover, the article explores the practical and legal advantages and disadvantages of money laundering being considered a specific crime in international law.

The aim of this paper is considering that obtaining illegitimate property and obtaining property illegally is morally outrageous. The law also condemns it as a crime. The act of those who launder the proceeds of crime is also condemned. This condemnation is almost universal. So, money laundering as a way of diversion of the origin of the illegal gains into legitimate currency or other assets has been criminalized in most of the countries, including in Iran. Before criminalization of money laundering, there were different laws which referred to the case without referring to the term of money laundry. According to Article 49 of the Iranian Constitution “all proceeds of illegal sources like embezzlement, bribery, gambling and other ways should be confiscated.”

Article 662 of the Islamic Penal Code (IPC) ratified in 1996 criminalized dealing with the proceeds of theft and Note 2 of Article 119 of the Penal Code of the Armed Forces criminalized obtaining the proceeds of embezzlement. But, in 2008, to follow the international conventions, especially Article 3 of the psychotropic substances 1988 in Vienna and also Financial Action Task Force (FATF) recommendations on Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing, the legislator ratified the anti-money laundering code (AMLC). The methodology is an analytical one. The author using an analytical method, has analyzed the subject with consideration of Iran’s situation, as well as international documents and FATF’s recommendations.

The author has studied the issue, believing that domestic regulations of Iran comply with international regulations and FATF recommendations. The current paper considers the different aspects of the AMLCs in Iran in relation to FATF recommendations.

The author confirms the originality of the paper and declares that he has referred all the other materials.