On 21 August, the International Tax Law Commission of the University of Buenos Aires School of Law, led by the Centre for Financial and Tax Law Studies, held a virtual academic event to explore international tax cooperation frameworks, with an audience of over 200 attendees.

Targeted at academics, international organisations and policymakers, we participated in this initiative aiming to explore the intersection between tax policies and human rights, particularly in the Latin American context.

The panel featured tax law experts who shared their insights based on their extensive experience working within public institutions related to tax administration in Argentina and Peru and at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). They provided a technical perspective on how states can cooperate through information sharing to identify individuals with assets across different jurisdictions and combat tax evasion. The discussion covered the technical mechanisms and technologies facilitating such cooperation, highlighting their significance in global tax governance.

Our Associate Programme Officer on Economic Justice, Ezequiel Steuermann, was invited to introduce a human rights perspective into the discussion. He emphasised the importance of integrating human rights considerations into tax policies, arguing that international human rights law provides a framework to judge and sanction states pursuing aggressive fiscal measures that propel a "race to the bottom" between states on fiscal matters. He also highlighted how these practices could lead to human rights violations by depriving vulnerable states (primarily in the Global South) of the resources needed to fund public services, which are essential for realising human rights.

Additionally, he stressed that the UN's approach to international tax cooperation is more democratic and holds more potential for resource redistribution than the OECD's process, which magnifies preexisting power imbalances in the context of "consensus-based" negotiations. 

Our Programme Officer also highlighted the significance of the recent adoption of the final text of the Terms of Reference for the United Nations Framework Convention on International Tax Convention explicitly incorporating human rights as a guiding principle. This inclusion is fundamental to ensure that the future treaty to be negotiated under these terms will be aligned with states' obligations concerning human rights, including international assistance and cooperation and extraterritorial obligations. This will ultimately facilitate resource redistribution from the Global North to the Global South and support the financing of human rights.

This event reinforced the need for collective action to align fiscal policies with human rights standards, advocating for international tax cooperation frameworks that promote social and economic justice. Also, the sensible need to enhance interdisciplinary dialogue by introducing human rights expertise within fiscal spaces, thereby breaking preexisting silos and fostering synergies.