How to defend democracy: Strengthening sanctions and tackling illicit finance

08. 10. 2024.

14:00-15:10 | 25 September 2024 | E.II lecture hall, main building | Corvinus University of Budapest

The founder and director of the Royal United Services Institute’s (RUSI) Centre for Finance and Security, Tom Keatinge presented on how to defend and strengthen democracy against illicit finance and improve sanctions effectiveness.

Western democracies have been open to foreign finance and investment, seeking to capitalise on the benefits they bring. But there’s another dimension to these financial flows that are welcomed by Western countries, a dimension that was almost entirely ignored until Russia’s war of aggression on Ukraine — illicit finance.

Russia’s war of aggression also highlighted the importance of sanctions as a foreign policy tool. However, the ongoing sanctions response faces challenges of implementation and enforcement, which undermine effectiveness and increase the range of unintended consequences.

The lecture explored how to tackle the malign influence of illicit finance, and how sanctions can become more efficient in defending democracies.

The Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) is the world’s oldest and the UK’s leading defence and security think tank.

Tom Keatinge is the founding Director of the Centre for Finance and Security (CFS) at RUSI, where his research focuses on matters at the intersection of finance and security.

He has a Master’s in Intelligence and International Security from King’s College London, where he studied the effectiveness of the global counterterror finance regime. Prior to joining RUSI in 2014, he was an investment banker for 20 years at J.P. Morgan.