Creation of Prohibition Regimes in Combatting Money Laundering

The notion of International Regimes recently emerged as an influential concept, enabling to explain the nature of international governance. Apart from uncovering their internal structure and assessing their power to restrict national policies, the current research programme is also focused on identifying their origins. In explaining them, many scholars have relied on the “life-cycle” approach, which identifies several stages, associated with the birth, dissemination and acceptance of international norms. The current article aims to summarize recent theoretical developments in this domain, focusing on the evolution of prohibition regimes, which was initially traced by Eton Nadelmann, and to test their explanatory power in the case of international regime to fight money laundering. It also aims to find ways to further develop the presented research program. This analysis demonstrates that legalization of criminal gains was not perceived as an issue for international regulation. However, the rise of public awareness mobilized several powerful states to form an international coalition, which acted as a trigger for the creation of an international regime. The Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering became its main pillar and an influential international institution. Due to the collective hegemony of the leading states, other players had to adjust. Therefore, in recent decades the emerged regime consolidated and proved viable. The study demonstrates the significant role of the political component within the traditional domain of technocratic international cooperation.

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