View previous stories
	Judge rules young people have right to a safe and healthy environment by UN Child Rights Committee, agencies   18 Dec. 2024   USA: Montana Supreme Court affirms landmark Youth-Led Climate Decision, upholding Constitutional Rights to a Safe and Livable Climate. (Our Children's Trust)   In a historic ruling today, the Montana Supreme Court affirmed 6-1 the decision of the district court in the landmark case, Held v. State of Montana, siding with the 16 youth plaintiffs who had sued the state over its promotion of fossil fuel extraction and its failure to consider climate change impacts in its decision-making.   This ruling, the first of its kind from a state supreme court, affirms the district court’s ruling that the state’s acts in perpetuating a fossil fuel energy system with blind eyes violated the youth plaintiffs’ fundamental constitutional rights to a clean and healthful environment, dignity, and safety, reinforcing the growing legal momentum behind youth-led climate justice movements.   District Court Judge Kathy Seeley’s August 2023 decision, upheld today, made Held v. State of Montana the first youth-led constitutional climate lawsuit in U.S. history to go to trial and secure a victory.   In her ruling, Judge Seeley stated: "Each additional ton of greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere exacerbates impacts to the climate. Plaintiffs' injuries will grow increasingly severe and irreversible without science-based actions to address climate change." Judge Seeley also ruled that the fundamental right to a clean and healthful environment enshrined in Montana’s Constitution incorporates the climate system and that Montana's environment is unconstitutionally degraded due to the current level of greenhouse gases concentrations and climate impacts.   The Montana Supreme Court today upheld these findings, ruling that state laws prohibiting the consideration of greenhouse gas emissions or climate impacts during fossil fuel permitting decisions and laws preventing constitutional remedies in court were unconstitutional.   Today’s ruling requires the state to ensure it considers the environmental and public health consequences, and significantly the harm to children, of each proposed fossil fuel project, marking a turning point in Montana’s energy policy.   “This is a monumental moment for Montana, our youth, and the future of our planet,” said Nate Bellinger, lead counsel to the plaintiffs. “Today, the Montana Supreme Court has affirmed the constitutional rights of youth to a safe and livable climate, confirming that the future of our children cannot be sacrificed for fossil fuel interests..".   http://www.ourchildrenstrust.org/press-releases   May 2024   Children tell Inter-American Court of Human Rights how climate change is affecting them in historic hearing. (Save the Children, agencies)   Two teenage girls will give first-hand accounts on how climate change is negatively impacting the rights of children during a historic hearing in Brazil today, drawing on their own experiences and discussions with peers across the Americas.   Joselim, 17, from Peru, and Camila, 14, from El Salvador, will tell the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) how the climate crisis is depriving them of their rights as outlined in the Convention of the Rights of the Child, such as education, survival and development.   They will tell the Court how extreme weather such as heatwaves and heavy rain is decimating agriculture and driving up food prices, contributing to a health and nutrition crisis in children and families. They will also highlight how the impacts of climate change can disrupt learning for children, with increasingly adverse weather conditions such as floods and landslides preventing children from getting to school.   The hearing forms part of the second phase of an historic inquiry which started last year and was instigated by Colombia and Chile, which asked the court to set out what legal responsibilities states have to tackle climate change and to stop it breaching people’s human rights.   This “advisory opinion” could be highly influential, setting the framework for future legal action.   Joselim, 17, said: "Looking after Mother Earth is urgent because time is against us. Children, adolescents, young adults, and humanity in general should enjoy a healthy, clean, dignified, and safe environment. This requires change to rebuild a conscious society, in which children and adolescents are active participants. We should take care of the earth we live on and preserve humanity. My call to action for authorities is to respect our Mother Earth, preserve it, and take care of it.   “We need leaders to invest in the recovery of agriculture, in education, and in environmental plans and public policies with adequate resources and personnel. We need them to promote recycling, using renewable energy, and adopting agricultural production techniques that are friendlier to nature so that more children and adolescents can enjoy a healthy, clean, and safe environment.   Camila,14, said: “The Court must listen to and learn from children and adolescents about how we are living through the climate crisis and its impact on our rights. Climate change is affecting our right to health in many ways, for example, causing deaths and illnesses from extreme heat waves, storms, and floods, toxic air pollution, droughts, food shortages, the spread of diseases like cholera and dengue fever, and serious infections from increased animal diseases that are transmitted to people. All this, in turn, generates poverty and displacement.”   The hearing is taking place following the submission to the Court of an Amicus Curiae brief in which an organisation can set out legal arguments and recommendations. This was initiated by child-led networks, Molacnnats and Red Latinoamericana de Ninas, Ninos y Adolescentes (REDNNyAs), both of which are partners of Save the Children. The process was also supported by Peruvian organisation Peruvian Society of SPDA and facilitated by Save the Children through its regional civil society strengthening programme.   It follows months of consultations with children across the region on how their rights are being eroded by the impacts of climate change and on the measures that States should adopt to protect human rights in the face of the climate crisis, with special emphasis on the right to health, education and adequate food.   http://www.savethechildren.net/news/children-tell-inter-american-court-human-rights-how-climate-change-affecting-them-historic http://wmo.int/media/news/global-temperature-record-streak-continues-climate-change-makes-heatwaves-more-extreme http://www.unicef.org/blog/urgent-need-child-centred-loss-and-damage-fund http://www.unicef.org/innocenti/reports/loss-and-damage-finance-children http://www.endchildhoodpoverty.org/publications-feed/climatechange http://reliefweb.int/report/world/climate-changed-child-childrens-climate-risk-index-supplement-enar http://www.savethechildren.net/news/more-half-pakistan-s-school-age-children-will-be-out-school-due-extreme-heat http://resourcecentre.savethechildren.net/pdf/born-into-the-climate-crisis.pdf/ http://www.unicef.org/eap/press-releases/sweltering-heat-across-east-asia-and-pacific-puts-childrens-lives-risk-unicef http://www.unicef.org/reports/climate-changed-child http://www.unicef.org/press-releases/climate-change-urgent-threat-pregnant-women-and-children   Sep. 2023   Urgent action by States needed to tackle climate change, says UN Committee in guidance on children’s rights and environment. (OHCHR)   The United Nations Child Rights Committee has published authoritative guidance on children’s rights and the environment with a special focus on climate change. The guidance specifies the legislative and administrative measures States should urgently implement to address the adverse effects of environmental degradation and climate change on the enjoyment of children’s rights, and to ensure a clean, healthy, and sustainable world now and to preserve it for future generations.   The Committee has adopted its guidance, formally known as General Comment No. 26, after two rounds of consultation with States, national human rights institutions, international organizations, civil society, thematic experts and children.   The Committee received 16,331 contributions from children in 121 countries; children shared and reported on the negative effects of environmental degradation and climate change on their lives and communities and asserted their right to live in a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.   “Children are architects, leaders, thinkers and changemakers of today’s world. Our voices matter, and they deserve to be listened to,” said 17-year-old Kartik, a climate and child rights activist from India and one of the Committee’s child advisers. “General Comment No. 26 is the instrument that will help us understand and exercise our rights in the face of environmental and climate crises,” he added.   “This general comment is of great and far-reaching legal significance,” said Ann Skelton, Chair of the Committee, emphasising, “as it details States’ obligations under the Child Rights Convention to address environmental harms and guarantee that children are able to exercise their rights. This encompasses their rights to information, participation, and access to justice to ensure that they will be protected from and receive remedies for the harms caused by environmental degradation and climate change.”   The general comment clarifies how children’s rights apply to environmental protection and underscores that children have the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment. This right is implicit in the Convention and directly linked to, in particular, the rights to life, survival and development, the highest attainable standard of health, an adequate living standard, and education. This right is also necessary for the full enjoyment of children’s rights.   The general comment further asserts that States shall protect children against environmental damage from commercial activities. It specifies that States are obliged to provide legislative, regulative and enforcement frameworks to ensure that businesses respect children’s rights, and should require businesses to undertake due diligence regarding children’s rights and the environment. Immediate steps should be taken when children are identified as victims to prevent further harm to their health and development and to repair the damage done.   The Committee observes that, in many countries, children encounter barriers to attaining legal standing due to their status, limiting their means of asserting their rights in relation to the environment. States should therefore provide pathways for children to access justice for violations of their rights relating to environmental harm, including through complaints mechanisms that are child-friendly, gender-responsive and disability-inclusive. In addition, mechanisms should be available for claims of imminent or foreseeable harms and past or current violations of children’s rights.   With regard to climate change, the general comment underlines that States must take all necessary measures to protect against harms to children’s rights related to climate change caused by business enterprises, such as by ensuring that businesses rapidly reduce their emissions.   The guidance also emphasises the urgent and collective need for developed States to address the present climate finance gap, including through grants rather than loans to developing States to avoid negative impacts on children’s rights. It also notes that climate finance is overly slanted toward mitigation at the cost of adaptation and loss and damage measures, which has discriminatory effects on children who live in areas where more adaptation measures are needed.   The Committee urges immediate collective States actions to tackle environmental harm and climate change.   http://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2023/08/urgent-action-states-needed-tackle-climate-change-says-un-committee-guidance http://news.un.org/en/story/2023/08/1140122 http://childrightsenvironment.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Press-Release_GC26.pdf   14 Aug. 2023   Judge rules young people have right to a safe and healthy environment. (Our Children's Trust)   “Today, for the first time in U.S. history, a court ruled on the merits of a case that the government violated the constitutional rights of children through laws and actions that promote fossil fuels, ignore climate change, and disproportionately imperil young people,” said Julia Olson, Chief Legal Counsel and Executive Director with Our Children’s Trust.   “In a sweeping win for our clients, the Honorable Judge Kathy Seeley declared Montana’s fossil fuel-promoting laws unconstitutional and enjoined their implementation. As fires rage in the West, fueled by fossil fuel pollution, today’s ruling in Montana is a game-changer that marks a turning point in this generation’s efforts to save the planet from the devastating effects of human-caused climate chaos. This is a huge win for Montana, for youth, for democracy, and for our climate. More rulings like this will certainly come.”   “Today we witnessed democracy in action as Montana’s judiciary fulfilled its constitutional duty to hold the political branches accountable for actions exacerbating the climate crisis and causing harm to the state’s youngest and most vulnerable people. This is what climate justice in the courts, and protecting the constitutional rights of our childrens’ right to a safe climate looks like,” said Nate Bellinger, senior staff attorney with Our Children’s Trust.   In an historic first, Judge Kathy Seeley in the First Judicial District Court of Montana ruled wholly in favor of the 16 youth plaintiffs in Held v. State of Montana, declaring that the state of Montana violated the youth’s constitutional rights, including their rights to equal protection, dignity, liberty, health and safety, and public trust, which are all predicated on their right to a clean and healthful environment.   The court invalidated as unconstitutional and enjoined Montana laws that promoted fossil fuels and required turning a blind eye to climate change.   The court ruled the youth plaintiffs had proven their standing to bring the case by showing significant injuries, the government’s substantial role in causing them, and that a judgment in their favor would change the government’s conduct.   In a 103-page decision, Judge Seeley’s Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law, and Order set forth critical evidentiary and legal precedent for the right of youth to a safe climate, including these highlights:   * "Each additional ton of GHGs [greenhouse gases] emitted into the atmosphere exacerbates impacts to the climate."   * “Every additional ton of GHG emissions exacerbates Plaintiffs’ injuries and risks locking in irreversible climate injuries.”   * “Plaintiffs’ injuries will grow increasingly severe and irreversible without science-based actions to address climate change.”   * “Plaintiffs have proven that as children and youth, they are disproportionately harmed by fossil fuel pollution and climate impacts.”   * “The State authorizes fossil fuel activities without analyzing GHGs or climate impacts, which result in GHG emissions in Montana and abroad that have caused and continue to exacerbate anthropogenic climate change.”   * The order provides meaningful redress to plaintiffs’ injuries because “the amount of additional GHG emissions emitted into the climate system today and in the coming decade will impact the long-term severity of the heating and the severity of Plaintiffs’ injuries.”   * “The Defendants have the authority under the statutes by which they operate to protect Montana's environment and natural resources, protect the health and safety of Montana's youth, and alleviate and avoid climate impacts by limiting fossil fuel activities that occur in Montana when the MEPA analysis shows that those activities are resulting in degradation or other harms which violate the Montana Constitution.”   * “Montana's contributions to GHG emissions can be measured incrementally and cumulatively both in terms of immediate local effects and by mixing in the atmosphere and contributing to global climate change and an already destabilized climate system.”   * “Montana's GHG contributions are not de minimis but are nationally and globally significant. Montana's GHG emissions cause and contribute to climate change and Plaintiffs' injuries and reduce the opportunity to alleviate Plaintiffs' injuries.”   * Court finds that Earth Energy Imbalance is the most critical scientific metric in determining climate stability and includes a graphic showing that 350 ppm was the level of CO2 where the Earth was last within energy balance.   Allowing consideration of climate change “would provide the clear information needed to conform their decision-making to the best science and their constitutional duties and constraints, and give them the necessary information to deny permits for fossil fuel activities when inconsistent with protecting Plaintiffs’ constitutional rights.”   “This is a landmark decision establishing enforceable principles of intergenerational justice,” said attorney Roger Sullivan, of McGarvey Law. “Simply stated, the government elected by this generation must abide its obligation to pass on a stable climate system to future generations.”   “It is incredibly gratifying to see a Montana court recognize the effects the state’s harmful energy policies have on young people and all Montanans,” said Barbara Chillcott, senior attorney at the Western Environmental Law Center.   “Judge Seeley’s ruling underscores the reality that Montana’s government is actively working to undermine our constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment. Despite the state’s attempts to avoid any responsibility, the court’s decision affirms that the state has the ‘discretion to deny permits for fossil fuel activities that would result in unconstitutional levels of GHG emissions, unconstitutional degradation and depletion of Montana’s environment and natural resources, or infringement of the constitutional rights of Montanans and Youth Plaintiffs.’   This decision sets important precedent for other constitutional climate cases in the U.S., and, most importantly, gives these youth plaintiffs some hope for a better future.”   Trial in this landmark youth-led climate lawsuit - the first ever constitutional climate trial in U.S. history - ran from June 12 to June 20, and included testimony from 10 of plaintiffs’ expert witnesses as well as 12 of the 16 young Montanans who filed the suit over three years ago.   The youth plaintiffs claimed their lives and liberties were at stake, including their constitutional rights to a clean and healthful environment, to equal protection of the law, to individual dignity, and to safety, health, and happiness - and the responsibility of their state government to cease its actions that exacerbate the climate crisis, degrade Montana’s environment and natural resources, and harm the youth.   The youth plaintiffs in this case did not not seek money in their lawsuit. Instead, today’s ruling declared that state laws prohibiting Montana agencies from considering climate change or greenhouse gas emissions when permitting fossil fuel activities were unconstitutional.. http://tinyurl.com/2k5r4pj9   http://www.ourchildrenstrust.org/press-releases http://news.mongabay.com/2023/08/first-of-its-kind-legal-ruling-favors-youth-in-montana-climate-case/ http://theconversation.com/montana-kids-win-historic-climate-lawsuit-heres-why-it-could-set-a-powerful-precedent-207907 http://climate.law.columbia.edu/news/sabin-center-staff-weigh-held-v-montana-case http://climate.law.columbia.edu/news/sabin-center-unep-release-global-climate-litigation-report-2023-status-review http://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/08/ruling-us-climate-lawsuit-historic-human-rights-based-precedent/ http://www.ohchr.org/en/stories/2023/08/about-our-human-rights-us-youths-win-landmark-climate-case http://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/08/14/youths-win-montana-climate-trial/   * 27 Sep. 2023: Youth-Led Climate Case begins at European Human Rights Court - Six Portuguese young people are suing the governments of 33 countries, arguing their human rights have been violated by a widespread failure to mitigate the climate crisis:   http://youth4climatejustice.org/ http://www.ciel.org/news/climate-inaction-discriminates-against-youth-european-court-is-told/ http://www.ipcc.ch/reports/ http://www.ohchr.org/en/special-procedures/sr-environment/ http://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/press-release/climate-litigation-more-doubles-five-years-now-key-tool-delivering http://www.unicef.org/reports/coldest-year-rest-of-their-lives-children-heatwaves   * United Nations General Assembly declares access to clean and healthy environment a universal human right: http://news.un.org/en/story/2022/07/1123482
	World to lose $4.7 trillion to tax havens over next decade unless UN tax convention adopted by ICIJ, Tax Justice Network, agencies   Aug. 2023   UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says international tax cooperation arrangements should be “fully inclusive”, calling for enhancing the U.N.’s role in tax-norm shaping and rule setting, reports the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists   The head of the United Nations has called for a shake-up of global tax rules — and more power to set them — in a new draft report criticizing the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.   The report, which will be finalized in coming weeks, analyzed current international tax cooperation arrangements and laid out U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres’ vision to ensure they better serve the needs of developing countries.   “Enhancing the U.N.’s role in tax-norm shaping and rule setting, fully taking into account existing multilateral and international arrangements, appears the most viable path for making international tax cooperation fully inclusive and more effective,” Guterres said in the report.   For decades, international tax policy has been dominated by the OECD — a group of mostly high-income countries such as the U.S., the U.K. and Japan.   The outsized influence of wealthy countries on the organization’s policy agenda has led many developing countries, including some OECD members, to question its efficacy in setting equitable global tax standards.   At the end of last year, the U.N. General Assembly adopted a resolution from African member states calling to scale up efforts to combat illicit financial flows and tax evasion. The new report was mandated by the resolution and will be debated at the next session in September.   In the report, Guterres acknowledged OECD efforts to engage non-members, but added that “many of those countries find that there are significant barriers to meaningful engagement in agenda-setting and decision-making.”   “As a result, the substantive rules developed through these OECD initiatives often do not adequately address the needs and priorities of developing countries and/or are beyond their capacities to implement,” he said.   ICIJ investigations such as the Paradise Papers and Lux Leaks have highlighted the staggering scale of corporate tax dodging by some of the world’s biggest companies. The Paradise Papers exposed tax maneuvers by more than 100 corporations, including Nike and Apple, which shifted profits around the world to accumulate $252 billion offshore.   A recent report by advocacy group the Tax Justice Network warned that without urgent reform countries could lose nearly $5 trillion to tax havens over the next decade. The group has long pushed to shift global tax leadership from the OECD to the U.N. and for the adoption of a U.N. tax convention.   Guterres’ report offers three options for debate, including a legally binding framework convention, similar to the one favored by advocates, to establish an overarching system of tax governance.   In a statement, Tove Maria Ryding, tax coordinator at the European Network on Debt and Development, labeled the tabling of the proposal “a truly historic moment in international tax cooperation.”   http://www.icij.org/investigations/paradise-papers/oecd-surprised-and-disappointed-over-un-global-tax-plan/ http://taxjustice.net/press/un-secretary-general-sets-out-highly-anticipated-un-tax-convention-plans-rebukes-oecds-limited-effectiveness/ http://financialtransparency.org/un-tax-convention-historic-opportunity-risk-failing/ http://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/podcasts/2024/02/15/rethinking-humanitarianism-why-humanitarians-should-care-about-tax-justice   July 2023   World to lose $4.7 trillion to tax havens over next decade unless UN tax convention adopted. (Tax Justice Network)   Countries are on course to lose nearly US$5 trillion in tax to multinational corporations and wealthy individuals using tax havens to underpay tax over the next 10 years, the Tax Justice Network warns.   The future losses of public money would be equivalent to losing a year of worldwide spending on public health. Campaigners are urging countries to vote this winter in favour of beginning negotiations on a UN tax convention at the UN General Assembly to avert the astronomic losses.   “Countries have a choice to make at the UN this year end. Forfeit our future now by staying the course, or democratise global tax rules so we can hold on to the public money we need for the challenges ahead,” said Alex Cobham, chief executive at the Tax Justice Network.   The State of Tax Justice 2023 published today by the Tax Justice Network reports that countries around the world are losing US$472 billion in tax a year to global tax abuse. Of this annual loss, US$301 billion is lost to multinational corporations shifting profit into tax havens and US$171 billion is lost to wealthy individuals hiding wealth offshore.   Lower income countries, which have historically had little to no say on global tax rules, continue to be hit harder by global tax abuse. While most annual tax losses are suffered by higher income countries ($426 billion), these losses are equivalent to 9 per cent of higher income countries’ public health budgets. Lower incomes countries’ tax losses ($46 billion) are equivalent to more than half (56 per cent) of their public health budgets.   If countries stay the course followed for the past 10 years on international tax rules, countries will lose US$4.7 trillion over the next 10 years, the report estimates. In comparison, countries around the world collectively spent $4.66 trillion on public health in a single year.   Comparing further, the 2007-2009 Great Recession is estimated to have led to a loss of US$2 trillion in global economic growth. Tax losses over the next 10 years would be twice the scale of the impact of the Great Recession on the global economy.   No progress made on global tax abuse over past decade   The 10-year projection is based on the impact of the OECD’s efforts since 2013 to reform international tax architecture and curb losses to global tax abuse. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a club of rich countries that has set global tax rules for the past sixty years, ran its first reform process, the Domestic tax base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) process, from 2013 to 2015.   The process failed to deliver a significant reduction in global tax abuse and necessitated a second reform process, BEPS 2.0, to begin shortly after, which has so far only produced drafts of policy proposals.   No significant reductions have been made in the amount of tax countries lose to global tax abuse since the start of the OECD’s efforts to reform global tax 10 years ago. Looking to the next 10 years, studies by several bodies, including the IMF and the BEPS Monitoring Group, conclude that the current draft proposals the OECD has prepared under BEPS 2.0 will make little to no impact on the scale of tax losses. Even then, it is widely expected that many OECD members will not implement the proposals.   The 10-year projection thus assumes global tax losses will not drop below current levels over the next decade under OECD leadership on global tax.   The failure of the OECD process to curb global tax abuse is largely attributed to the inability of the body to agree policy solutions without its member countries, which are home to most multinational corporations’ headquarters, watering down the policies to redundancy.   Most of the meaningful solutions that the OECD has attempted or is attempting to push through are based on the tax justice policy platform – eg country by country reporting, automatic exchange of financial account information, unitary taxation and a minimum effective tax rate.   However, in all cases these policies have been rendered largely toothless under the pervasive influence of some OECD members who are also among the world’s biggest tax havens.   OECD member countries, together with their territorial dependencies, are estimated to be responsible for over three-fourths (77 per cent) of the US$472 billion in tax losses countries suffer a year, according to the report.   Countries poised to vote for UN tax leadership   To avert astronomic tax losses over the next 10 years, and free up trillions of dollars to support the off-track Sustainable Development Goals, the Tax Justice Network is urging countries to support moving leadership on global tax from the OECD to the UN, where global membership, public transparency and the UN’s human rights legal frameworks and technical expertise can provide a more viable forum for securing effective tax solutions.   Countries unanimously agreed at the UN last year to open the door to negotiations on a UN tax convention, which would move tax leadership to the UN.8 The historic resolution was adopted despite unprecedentedly aggressive attempts by the OECD to prevent the resolution from coming before the UN General Assembly.   The UN Secretary General will present a report this September on possible options for a UN tax convention which the UN General Assembly will then debate. Countries are then expected to vote on a UN General Assembly resolution by the end of the year on whether to formally begin negotiations on a UN tax convention.   Robust, undiluted versions of tax justice policy solutions that the OECD has been unable to land have already been endorsed by the UN High-Level Panel on International Financial Accountability, Transparency and Integrity, and included in early proposed drafts for a possible UN tax convention.   Regional bodies in Europe, Africa and Latin America recently announced or are preparing shortly to announce support for UN tax leadership.   The European Parliament recently backed negotiations on a UN tax convention. Support for a UN tax convention has been led by African countries for years. The historic resolution adopted at the UN last year on a UN tax convention was put forward by the Africa Group at the UN, and the influential African Union Commission reaffirmed that commitment to UN tax leadership earlier this month.   Latin American and Caribbean nations are meeting at a first-of-its-kind regional summit this week to discuss international tax rules. The countries are expected to agree regional consensus and negotiation positions largely in favour of moving leadership on global tax to the UN.   Supporters of the UN tax convention have pointed to the OECD’s failure to deliver tangible progress on rampant global tax abuse as well as to the OECD’s failure to meaningfully include most countries in its rulemaking process – a criticism the European Parliament upheld in its backing of a UN tax convention.   Democratic revolution in global tax   The current lack of democratic process on global tax rules was put into sharp focus this month when the Financial Times confirmed that the OECD had intervened to deter Australia from adopting measures on curbing tax abuse, and also confirmed that the IMF was using debt renegotiations to coerce countries to adopt OECD tax rules which the IMF’s own research shows will make it harder for fiscally stressed countries to collect tax.   Tax justice campaigners are hailing the potential shift to UN tax leadership as a “democratic revolution” in global tax.   Alex Cobham, chief executive at the Tax Justice Network, said:   “We’re on the cusp of a global democratic revolution in tax that could reclaim literally trillions of dollars in public money. For sixty years, global tax rules were decided behind closed doors at the OECD where a handful of countries and lobbyists saw tax policy as something to cater to the interests of the wealthiest corporations and billionaires. We now have a real shot at bringing this process into the daylight of democracy at the UN, where all countries will finally get a real say, and where governments will finally have to answer to their people on tax policy.   “The UN tax convention can trigger a more just economic era. The hold of multinational corporations and billionaires on global tax policy must be reined in by global democratic governance at the UN.”   Hon. Irene Ovonji-Odida, a panellist of the UN High Level Panel on International Financial Accountability, Transparency and Integrity, a member of the African Union/Economic Commission for Africa High Level Panel on Illicit Financial Flows out of Africa (the ‘Mbeki panel’) and chair of the Tax Justice Network board, writes in the report’s foreword:   “The negotiations at the UN offer a historic chance, for the first time, of a globally inclusive tax body. This could finally allow the less powerful individual states to protect themselves from cross-border tax abuse and set their own tax rules, finally having the space to exercise the full fiscal sovereignty that is the right of all states. And that would in turn allow all of us, and not just the uber wealthy and global corporations to benefit from the positive power of tax.   With this all states – especially lower and middle income ones -could raise sufficient revenues for inclusive public services, to end the inequalities within and between countries that scar our societies, and to strengthen the bonds of political representation and government accountability. “We must seize this moment, in every country and region of the world – because we all suffer the costs of tax abuse.”   http://taxjustice.net/press/world-to-lose-4-7-trillion-to-tax-havens-over-next-decade-unless-un-tax-convention-adopted-countries-warned/ http://taxjustice.net/reports/the-state-of-tax-justice-2023/ http://www.taxobservatory.eu/publication/global-tax-evasion-report-2024/ http://www.icrict.com/press-release/2023/3/20/icrict-letter-to-united-nations-secretary-general-antnio-guterres http://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/ior40/7118/2023/en/ http://www.cesr.org/cesrs-submission-to-untc-tor-ad-hoc-committee/ http://www.cesr.org/oecds-tax-deal-may-discriminate-on-the-basis-of-gender-and-race-un-experts-warn/   http://www.icij.org/investigations/paradise-papers/australia-spikes-plan-to-force-companies-to-disclose-global-tax-data/ http://www.icij.org/investigations/paradise-papers/african-nations-win-un-tussle-over-paving-the-way-for-global-tax-reforms/ http://www.icij.org/tags/tax-havens/ http://www.icij.org/investigations/ http://factipanel.org/press-release/un-panel-end-financial-abuses-to-save-people-and-planet.html Visit the related web page
	View more stories