Item

Abstract

Over the last few years, the international community - through "hard” and “soft law” measures - as well as States have committed themselves to improving mechanisms for preventing and repressing money-laundering and for confiscation, in particular in the context of organised crime. In spite of this standardising effort, several national systems have found that the level of application of the offence of money- laundering by judges and courts is less than satisfactory, and that existing legal mechanisms aimed at confiscating assets of criminal origin are not giving the expected results. The intended aim of this work is to carry out a succinct analysis of the reasons that prevent legal measures from being effective in practice, and to put forward solutions. In order to define the topic, after an introduction to the difficulties of implementing international standards, the paper focuses in particular on internal obstacles, not on aspects relating to co-operation with other countries.