














During the first week of May, a meeting is taking place in which organizations and experts will build proposals with a view to the First Latin American and Caribbean Summit for a global, inclusive and sustainable taxation, to be held in July in Cartagena.
The year 2023 began with long-awaited news for the global tax debate. The government of Colombia announced the holding of a Summit for global, inclusive, sustainable and equitable taxation, the first of its kind in the region. The Initiative for Human Rights in Fiscal Policy, from which Dejusticia is a member, supports the holding of this Summit, as it is an important step towards the construction of a tax pact for Latin America and the Caribbean and an excellent opportunity for governments to consolidate a tax bloc with greater joint power in international negotiations.
Prior to the Summit, which will take place on July 27 and 28 in the city of Cartagena, the Colombian Ministry of Finance, with the technical support of Fedesarrollo, called on academia, business, civil society and any interested individual to send summaries defining the type of problems that prevent the construction of a comprehensive, inclusive, sustainable and equitable tax system. These summaries will be included in a policy brief that will be delivered to the governments attending the Summit, while the general public will be able to access them through a digital repository in Spanish and English.
In fact, several summaries were sent from the organizations that are part of our Initiative for Human Rights in Fiscal Policy. Dejusticia, from Colombia, made two proposals: one on the basis of human rights to achieve better global taxation and the other on access to tax information as a human right. Nathalie Beghin, from Inesc, sent a document related to tax incentives and equality between countries. María Emilia Mamberti, coordinator of our Initiative, sent a summary on the contribution of human rights standards to global taxation discussions, while Olivia Minatta, from CESR, another of our Initiative's organizations, sent a paper on constitutional trends in taxation in the region. From a total of 80 abstracts received, 21 authors from 10 countries were selected by a committee of national and international experts to present their ideas in an academic space that will be held this first week of May in Bogota. These ideas, which feed the debate on global taxation, have served as a kind of preparation for the Cartagena Summit, in which civil society is expected to play an active role.
During the first day of this academic conference, which took place on Tuesday, May 2, the discussions focused on the need to advance in the improvement of international taxation measures, as well as the shortcomings of the inclusive framework of the OECD. . These failures, both procedural and substantive, include Latin America and the Caribbean, which often reaches these instances without a unified voice and without adapting the rules of the global systems to the needs of the region.
Next, we share central ideas of the first date of the meeting:
Jayati Ghosh, Commissioner of ICRICT and Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, warned that the world is currently looking to Latin America and the Caribbean for the progressive transformations that are taking place here. However, the region is not escaping the global crisis due to the increase in food prices, the external debt of the countries most affected by the pandemic and the challenges posed by climate change, which has led to a serious setback in terms of inequality and the violence that derives from it.
Despite this scenario, Ghosh insists, with unfair and regressive tax systems it is impossible to face these problems. “In some places they pay zero taxes, while companies that generate a lot of profits grow, such as pharmaceuticals or oil companies, which benefit from the pandemic and the war in Ukraine. They double, triple, quintuple profits, while taxes are 3 or 5 percent, and that is due to the tax architecture of a century ago that is already obsolete”, notes the expert.
On this architecture, José Antonio Ocampo, former Minister of Finance of Colombia and today advisor of that portfolio for the Global Taxation Summit, in the attempts to develop global taxation mechanisms, the benefit for regions like ours has been minimal. “The issue here is international equity. The platforms sell in different countries, but in those they do not pay taxes, while in natural persons, many of the equity problems are due to the design of the taxation, which does not sufficiently control evasion and avoidance”, warns Ocampo.
Yariv Brauner, an expert from the University of Florida, mentions that, although the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) seem very general, from a legal point of view it is the only global agenda that exists, which is why it is necessary that the agenda tax is compatible. In this sense, and taking into account the unavoidable links between countries, it is clear that no nation can have its own tax regulation, but common rules are necessary. For this reason, says Brauner, we need a framework agreement, much more binding than a new tax model proposed by the PNU. “We have an opportunity to make constructive proposals if we focus on international tax structures,” he concludes.
Abdul Muheet Chowdhary, from the South Centre, says that countries may be losing between US$240 billion and US$250 billion because of tax havens, while Latin America could receive four times the current money if the United Nations solution were implemented. in taxation.
In a context of greater and better collection, with international rules, the guarantee of human rights, especially economic, social and cultural rights, would benefit, since it is clear that they require a high allocation of resources. By the way, Pedro Rossi, professor at the State University of Campinas (Brazil) and member of the Committee of Experts of our Initiative, human rights cannot be a by-product of the organization of an efficient economy, but must be a foundation fundamental. “It is said that taxes cause distortions in the market economy and that they generate inefficiencies. We have to give new meaning to these terms if we want to change people's living conditions, since there are ways of addressing efficiency that violate human rights”, notes the expert.
By the way, Rodrigo Uprimny, Dejusticia researcher and also a member of the Committee of Experts of our Initiative, the relationship that Rossi mentions becomes even deeper if we refer to the relationship that is woven between global taxation and our Principles and Guidelines for Human Rights in Tax Policy, since rights and their satisfaction cost, while tax justice has an impact on human rights. "What is seen globally is that the tax competition to the bottom has eroded the ability of states to collect enough taxes to satisfy the rights of the population," he asserts. More about this source textSource text required for additional translation information Send feedback Side panels
This Monday, March 6 at 2:15 pm Los Angeles time, our Initiative will participate in the 186th Session of the Commission, requesting a series of crucial measures to maintain the connections between these two issues in the region.
From March 6-10 in Los Angeles, California, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) will hold its #186th Session. During the first day of this important event, the organizations that are part of our Initiative will hold a thematic hearing on Fiscal Policy and the Guarantee of Economic, Social, Cultural and Environmental Rights (ESCR) in the region.
The session, which will take place at the University of California at 2:15 pm (Los Angeles time), is of utmost relevance, as it will show evidence of the centrality of fiscal policy for the guarantee of human rights, will recall the fiscal tools that States have to advance the guarantee of ESCR, will demonstrate the progress that the region has made in this area, and will ask the IACHR to adopt concrete measures to facilitate such progress.
For our Initiative, the measures should be focused on the adoption of a thematic resolution on fiscal policy and human rights that promotes the operationalization of our Human Rights Principles on Fiscal Policy in the framework of the Inter-American System, which makes concrete recommendations for States to adopt fiscal policies aligned with their human rights obligations, and that provides an inter-American reading of the Principles, with a view to the production of a possible thematic report on these issues.
This is based on several premises: that without adequate public resources, the material fulfillment of rights would be impossible; that fiscal policy is key to closing the gaps between individuals and groups and to incentivizing or discouraging behaviors that are necessary to ensure the guarantee of ESCR (such as taxes on sugary drinks about the right to health); and that fiscal policy is also linked to the strengthening of democracy and the fight against corruption, which confirms its importance for all human rights.
Thus, the organizations that are part of our Initiative insist that considering fiscal policy is relevant to implement decisions of the Inter-American System. The IACHR has identified the lack of economic resources as one of the most important challenges for States to implement its decisions. Likewise, the lack of financial capacity of the States is understood by the Commission as an obstacle to the fulfillment of compensation measures for victims, rehabilitation measures and truth and justice measures.
For these reasons, our Initiative values the progress made by the Inter-American System in connecting fiscal policy and human rights. Many of these advances have been led by the current Special Rapporteur for Economic, Social, Cultural and Environmental Rights (REDESCA), Soledad García Muñoz, whose work has been central in this area.
However, we find that the region is still missing out on the enormous potential of public finances to make decisive progress in the materialization of its normative commitments at the Inter-American level in the area of human rights.
For example, in the region, there is still poor coordination between Ministries of Finance and state agencies with competence in the area of human rights, while it is estimated that tax collection about average GDP for Latin America is far below the estimate for OECD countries (21.9% for the former, compared to 33.5% for the latter). The regressive nature of the region's tax systems must be added to this problem of insufficient resources, which explains why the poorest sectors bear a proportionally greater burden.
In short, under these conditions, most fiscal policies in Latin America do not facilitate public investment that would enable the progressive and egalitarian realization of ESCR, and prevent the States from moving with the speed required by the current crises, such as the one generated by the HIV/AIDS pandemic, the increase in the cost of living or the climate emergency.
This situation results in a systematic violation of the obligations imposed by the Inter-American Human Rights System on States Parties, such as the obligation to guarantee the exercise of all rights in conditions of real equality for all persons and to adopt, to the maximum available resources, all measures necessary to that end.
In 2023, there will be new and unique opportunities to have clear and consolidated inter-American standards that will allow us to capitalize on the Commission's legacy in this area and have the IACHR as a natural reference for the protection and promotion of human rights in the region.
We highlight, for example, the historic resolution issued by the UN General Assembly in November 2022, which recognized the importance of strengthening international tax cooperation between States and requested the preparation of a report with the next steps to achieve it. Then, there is also the call by the government of Colombia to hold the first Latin American Summit for global, inclusive, sustainable and equitable taxation, which, in our concept, will allow mobilizing the maximum available resources to finance the economic, social, cultural and environmental rights recognized by the American and international instruments.
If you want to find out what happens during this hearing, you can follow the broadcast on the IACHR website and the minute-by-minute updates on our Twitter account.
The Initiative for Human Rights Principles in Fiscal Policy is made up of eight organizations working in Latin America and the Caribbean, including ACIJ, CELS, CESR, Dejusticia, Fundar, Inesc, Red de Justicia Fiscal and GI-ESCR. Collectively, we seek to develop and promote a compendium of principles and guidelines that synthesize human rights standards applicable to tax policy.
The Principles for Human Rights in Tax Policy demonstrate the wealth of existing standards that connect tax policy and human rights, and the importance of applying those standards to achieve meaningful progress in the realization of rights, especially for certain groups. Thus, among other things, they point out concrete measures that can be taken to eliminate gender discrimination and promote substantive gender equality; indicate the need to allocate sufficient resources for historical reparations for indigenous and Afro-descendant populations; and indicate concrete steps to assess the fairness and transparency of tax benefits in line with human rights commitments. The Principles also guide what constitutes fair taxation and fair budgeting. In addition, they detail the fiscal reading of enhanced ESCR obligations, such as the use of maximum available resources, progressive realization, or guarantee of essential levels of rights.
Our Initiative exists when the disconnection between Human Rights and Tax Policy is critical, with multiple regressive consequences that could have a worsening effect in contexts of economic instability or crisis and in the face of fiscal austerity measures —a particularly acute problem in Latin America and the Caribbean, a region marked by inequality, poverty rates, severe austerity measures, under-regulated exploitation of natural resources, and corruption.
In this scenario, since 2015, our Initiative has sought to advance the potential of Tax Policies in the execution of Human Rights. Following those steps, in this ending year, we developed research, partnerships, and advocacy actions of the utmost value for our purpose:
In January 2022, we published seven papers describing how various economic actors other than the States have clear obligations in building and monitoring tax policies that guarantee Human Rights. Author Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky —who is also a Conicet researcher at the National University of Río Negro (Argentina) and a member of our Committee of Experts— explains how companies, regional and international organizations, universities, research centers, creditors, judges, among others, have golden opportunities to steer tax policies towards scenarios that combat poverty and inequality, as well as promote justice in all fields.
Then, in February, we published an article written by two researchers from the Center for Inclusive Policy, which, based on our Principles of Human Rights in Tax Policy, provides guidance to decision-makers, academics, social movements, and people with disabilities on how to include disability in the formulation and implementation of actions undertaken by governments to obtain and allocate public resources.
In 2022, our Initiative added three more publications: María Goenaga, a member of the Committee of Experts of our Initiative, reflects in a paper on how to strengthen tax morale in our region; Meggy Katigbak, a Philippine researcher and expert in tax and gender justice, wrote an article for our Initiative in which she refers to the direction that international financial institutions should take within the countries of the Global South. In another paper, all organizations that are part of our Steering Committee analyzed a series of fiscal measures taken by the governments of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, and Mexico during the Covid-19 health emergency.
From August 1 to 8, the eight organizations that are part of the Initiative, as well as experts, activists, and social movements, joined together to promote the Human Rights Principles in Tax Policy. In the Second Week for Fiscal Justice and Human Rights, we held four events, a network campaign on Argentina's foreign debt and a course for journalists and civil society to open debates and think together about how to promote fiscal measures in response to the multiple crises facing the region.
Those spaces also reflected how governments could use the Principles of Human Rights in Tax Policy to move toward economies that put people and the planet first —post-pandemic recovery, inequalities impacting women, LGBTQ+ people, and people with disabilities, the cannabis regulatory debate, and the climate crisis, among other issues, were on the agenda.
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) published its annual report for 2021, which compiled the Human Rights situation in the region, with its progress and challenges. In the section in which the Commission and REDESCA refer to economic, social, cultural, and environmental rights, the organizations celebrated the adoption and publication of our Principles and Guidelines on Human Rights in Tax Policy, and mentioned that our Initiative, "led by a group of prominent organizations and experts from regional civil society," constitutes a tool that contributes to the application of Inter-American standards in this area "and is useful for the bodies of the Inter-American system, as well as for OAS Member States and other relevant actors."
The same year, two multilateral organizations cited them during discussions on international cooperation in Tax Policy and the fight against extreme poverty. The first discussion was during the 77th session of the UN General Assembly (July 2022), where a report by Attiya Waris —the independent expert on the Consequences of Foreign Debt— 'Towards a global fiscal architecture from a human rights perspective' was released. Based on our Principles, Waris mentions that they are "unequivocal"; she says that States' obligations "go beyond unilateral efforts at the national level. All countries have extraterritorial obligations to ensure that legislation and tax policy respect and protect Human Rights beyond their borders."
The second mention is in a statement of the Council of Europe's Commissioner for Human Rights, Dunja Mijatović, in the face of increasing extreme poverty in the world, and in which, referring to our Initiative, she assures that tax policies based on Human Rights "can also help find adequate alternatives to austerity, thus preventing social crises, and help reverse inequality by alleviating the disproportionate burden borne by low-income people in some countries."
Our region was on edge in September with the plebiscite vote asking Chilean citizens whether or not they wanted a new Constitution, since the one left by the dictatorship of former President Augusto Pinochet was still in force. In that moment of citizen discussion, our Initiative presented our Principles for Human Rights in Tax Policy to the Chilean Undersecretary of Finance, Claudia Sanhueza, because they could illuminate the path of a possible new Constitution in fiscal and Human Rights matters. Though the outcome was the opposite for that purpose, we were also part of an important meeting called #ReimaginaLa, in which 40 organizations contributed to thinking about the future of Chile and Latin America.
Then, in October, there were the presidential elections in Brazil, which is still facing a political, social, and economic moment that is difficult to overcome. The former government of Jair Bolsanoro (2019-2022) deepened the divisions between those who support and do not support the Workers' Party (PT) while imposing a radical economic agenda that seriously affected social policies. So, when the presidential elections arrived and Bolsonaro faced off against fellow former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, our partner organization Inesc delivered our Principles for Human Rights in Tax Policy to the team in charge of Lula's economic policy. With the victory of Lula, we hope that our document will be a roadmap for his next government.
At the same time, in Colombia, the new government of Gustavo Petro proposed a progressive tax reform that faced multiple political and legislative obstacles to pass, our partner organization Dejusticia provided the public with valuable information on how this reform could include several of our principles.
Nearly 400 people from social movements, trade unions, and civil society organizations from around the world met from November 29 to December 2 in Santiago de Chile for the #OFiP22 (Our Future is Public) conference, which sought to develop strategies and narratives to strengthen public services and ensure the realization of economic, social and cultural rights.
Most of our organizations were present in dialogues and the construction of collective proposals. We bring out the panel "Tax cooperation and Human Rights: How to mobilize resources for a green transition and with a gender perspective in Latin America?" with Liz Nelson, Director of Tax Justice and Human Rights at Tax Justice Network, and two of the members of our Expert Committee: Magdalena Sepúlveda, Executive Director of the Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (IG-ESCR), and Rodrigo Uprimny, from Dejusticia.
Eight months after the Russian invasion and amid a global inflationary crisis, we spoke with Alejandro Rodriguez, Head of Advocacy at ICRICT (Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation), about how the economic impacts of that conflict have the potential to affect Human Rights, including Latin America and the Caribbean. Here are some of the ideas that came out of the dialogue.
Because of the globalized world in which we live, everything and everyone is interconnected. Let us start with the fact that Western countries imposed economic sanctions on Russia that increased the prices of oil and natural gas for the rest of Europe, which is highly dependent on imports of these products. Consequently, energy prices on that continent raised, which meant a rise in the cost of goods that Europe provided to the Global South. The war caused Ukraine, one of the world's major producers of fertilizers—such as urea— to stop producing in the quantities it used to. The consequence? Food, which needs immense amounts of them to mass-produce it, also went up in price, deepening poverty and inequality. For the moment, this is one of the impacts of the conflict in Latin America and the Caribbean, as the lowest-income households are the most affected.
While the conflict has led to the reconfiguration of budgets in countries such as Germany, where military spending doubled for the first time in decades, inflation forced Latin American and Caribbean countries to increase central bank interest rates as a recipe for fighting inflation. This prescription implies a downturn in the economy (which many economists may call a recession) and may lead states to make austerity decisions —with less spending for sectors related to economic, social, and cultural rights, such as public services. Such decisions are contrary to the first principle of the Human Rights in Fiscal Policy Initiative: Human Rights enforcement must be a fundamental objective of fiscal policy. At the same time, these global shocks are generating an economic decline in many countries, which means lower tax revenues for the welfare and guarantee of the rights of populations.
States have to implement public spending measures to soften the blows of inflation, but this requires more resources. This option is not so easy, as the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean are already heavily indebted to deal with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, and they have a limited financing capacity.
Wealth taxes, for example, are a fundamental measure that states should contemplate to help respond to the crisis without the need to enter into austerity measures, which have been shown to affect poverty and inequality. But there are measures other than the wealth tax, such as a model of fair taxation of multinationals, with a global minimum rate that would make these companies pay a corporate income tax of at least 21% or 25% in the places where they carry their activities. That would bring a lot of resources to countries who are not receiving resources from multinationals because they divert their profits to jurisdictions that are tax havens or have very low or zero corporate tax rates. This idea makes sense from Principle #14 of the Human Rights in Tax Policy Initiative: non-state actors, including corporations and intermediaries, have Human Rights responsibilities concerning their tax behavior.
The package of sanctions by Western countries on Russia is one way to put pressure on the Putin government. However, the pressure would increase if, among other measures, the assets in tax havens of oligarchs close to the president could be frozen or confiscated. This goes against Principle number 7 of the Human Rights in Tax Policy Initiative, which refers to the need for transparency in these matters. According to data from the European Tax Observatory, the wealth of Russian millionaires outside Russia is equivalent to 85% of Russia's national income. The problem is that it is unknown where it is, and there are no ways to confiscate such assets.
In her report on the Reform of the international debt architecture and human rights, the Independent Expert on the consequences of external debt and related international financial obligations of States for the full enjoyment of all human rights, especially human rights economic, social and cultural aspects of the United Nations Organization referred to the Principles for Human Rights in Fiscal Policy.