Write On! Lawyers & money laundering

(Write On! is an occasional item about notable calls for papers.) The Section of Professional Responsibility of the Association of American Law Schools is calling for papers so that it may select a speaker for its program of the at AALS' 2010 Annual Meeting -- themed "Transformative Law" -- this January in New Orleans, Louisiana.
The Section's session will examine the 2008 Guidance for Legal Professionals, anti-money laundering principles also known as the "Lawyer Guidance," recently issued by a Paris-based, 20-year-old, 34-member intergovernmental organization, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) (logo below right). Entitled "The Transformative Effect of International Initiatives on Lawyer Practice and Regulation: A Case Study Focusing on the FATF & Its 2008 Lawyer Guidance," it will be held from 10:30 a.m.-12:15 p.m. on Friday, January 8, 2009.
Already confirmed speakers include: attorneys Kevin L. Shepherd and Colin Tyre, who will address the history, negotiating dynamics, and implementation of the 2008 FATF Lawyer Guidance, as well as Law Professors Ellen S. Podgor (Stetson), James Thuo Gathii (Albany), and Thomas D. Morgan (George Washington). The Section's Chair, Professor Laurel S. Terry of Penn State Dickinson School of Law, will moderate the panel.
Here's an excerpt of Laurel's call for papers:

Even if you have never heard of the FATF or its October 2008 Lawyer Guidance and even if you do not specialize in professional responsibility issues, please don’t rule yourself out of this call for papers -- you are in good company! One reason why we selected this topic for the Annual Meeting program is our belief that few scholars are aware of the FATF’s legal profession gatekeeper initiatives, even though they have the potential to implicate the lawyer-client relationship in significant practice areas and are likely to change, in some significant ways, the manner in which these U.S.
lawyers practice.
The 2008 FATF Lawyer Guidance applies to U.S transactional lawyers whenever
they are involved in one of five areas of activity:
► helping their clients buy or sell real estate,
► helping them create, operate, or manage legal persons, such as corporations,
► helping them buy or sell business entities, or
► helping manage client money, securities or other assets or bank, savings or securities accounts.
The 2008 FATF Lawyer Guidance requires these lawyers to comply with certain recordkeeping requirements and conduct client due diligence (sometimes referred
to as “know your client” rules). But it does not include any suspicious transaction reporting obligations, which was viewed as a victory for the legal profession. A number of countries already have implemented the FATF principles by amending their laws or ethics rules; the United States is considering how to implement them.

Abstracts of 3 to 5 double-spaced pages, describing papers unpublished as of the session date, should be submitted by the deadline of September 1, 2009, to Section Chair Laurel Terry at LTerry@psu.edu. Laurel also welcomes e-mails seeking more information about the call or the program.

Too weak for bad guys

More evidence of the U.S. dollar's weakness, about which we posted earlier this week:
According to the Wall Street Journal, the euro, and not the dollar, is now the currency of choice for efficient laundering of drug proceeds.
They're better value, after all -- there's nearly $1.50 to each euro today, a leap from the 85 cents each brightly colored bill was worth when it debuted on New's Year Day 2002. Indeed, 'way back when I wrote this article on anti-money-laundering measures, analysts were expressing concern that criminals would appreciate the smuggling promise of the euro. The currency now used in 15 countries is more compact -- available in amounts as high as 500€, it takes up less space when moved across borders. The flipflop in dollar-to-euro exchange value has simply increased the attraction.
The stronger currency also seems to have strengthened European appetites for cocaine:

Consumption of the drug has soared in much of Western Europe, according to a report released last year by the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime. In Italy, use of the drug rose to 2.1% of the general population in 2005 from 1.1% just four years earlier. In France, it tripled from 2000 to 2005, from 0.2% to 0.6% of the adult population. Cocaine use in England doubled from 1998 to 2006, according to Britain's National Health Service, to 2.4% among adults.

The United States is not fully out of the loop, however. After illicit transactions circle the globe from South America to Europe, and not infrequently to Africa, they still often end with the arrival in the United States of suitcases, filled now with "narco-euros."

Estimates in the fog

Pointing to the enormous gap between U.S. estimates of the number of humans trafficked (50,000 a year) and U.S. cases involving trafficking (1,362 since 2000), criminologist Ronald Weitzer told the Washington Post:

'The discrepancy between the alleged number of victims per year and the number of cases they've been able to make is so huge that it's got to raise major questions. It suggests that this problem is being blown way out of proportion.'

Though law enforcement agents' lack of knowledge about or interest in the problem no doubt furthers that gap, in Weitzer's view, that can't account for all of it. In any event, the political capital to be won from embrace of the issue -- of critical concern to some in this administration's base -- itself suggests a need for careful examination of the scope of the problem and the proper means to address it.

The problem scarcely is limited to human trafficking. More than once the declaration of a transnational threat -- from drug trafficking, for instance, or money laundering, or terrorism -- has spurred massive spending campaigns. Campaigns have been undertaken with little identification of goals, little study of what might work to achieve those goals, and little consideration of how stepped-up law enforcement would impinge on civil liberties; in short, with little genuine cost-benefit analysis.

Inevitably, assessment of a criminal enterprise will contain "estimates in the fog." Petrus C. van Duyne, Organized Crime in Europe 113 (1996), quoted in Diane Marie Amann, Spotting Money Launderers: A Better Way to Fight Organized Crime?, 27 Syracuse Journal of International Law and Commerce 199, 229 (2000). That fact alone counsels care in crafting law enforcement mechanisms that will do the most harm to law-breakers with the least intrusion on law-abiders.