Between 31 July and 1 August, we attended the second session of negotiations at the United Nations headquarters in New York City to elaborate the terms of reference of the future United Nations Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation (also known as the 'UN Tax Convention').

Our Associate Programme Officer on Economic Justice, Ezequiel Steuermann, participated in the discussion rounds, coordinating with civil society organisations to push for a human rights perspective to be explicitly included in the terms of reference of the future convention. This would ensure that this legal instrument effectively guarantees economic, social, and cultural rights (ESCR).

The process leading up to the current debate has highlighted the differential value posed by regional coordination and active interaction between decision-makers and civil society. For instance, through the synergic collaboration by the African States at the end of 2023 to push for the General Assembly to adopt a resolution (Res. A/78/230) determining the beginning of intergovernmental discussions at the United Nations on ways to strengthen tax cooperation's inclusiveness and effectiveness through the development of this legally binding framework convention.

Additionally, civil society participation proved essential. Written submissions were presented to comment on the zero draft of the terms of reference elaborated by the Ad Hoc Committee after the first session of negotiations, where a collective push to explicitly include human rights within the convention's mandate was effectively accepted and included in the updated version of the text being currently debated at the United Nations.

Our participation in New York City allowed us to bear witness to some States' attempts to remove the inclusion of human rights from the draft terms of reference, arguing -under pretense- that such considerations should have no place on what they understand is a strictly fiscal debate. Moreover, other member states have pushed forward a delimitation of human rights which limits their scope to 'taxpayers rights,' an indeterminate category that is not regulated under international law and presents incompatibilities with a holistic approach to binding normative obligations arising from the relevant legal treaties that States have ratified on a global basis -namely, the UN Charter and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, among others.

However, such attempts are being actively resisted by many member states, acting in coordination to protect the inclusion of human rights within the preamble of the terms of reference and expanding their inclusion up to the principles section, following the demands of civil society.

Latin American countries forming part of the Regional Tax Platform for Latin America and the Caribbean (PTLAC) are playing a pivotal role in this regard, with Brazil, Colombia, and Chile spearheading efforts for the inclusion of progressive and environmental considerations throughout the terms of reference of the UN Tax Convention on a swift and coordinated manner.

This framework convention also provides a singular opportunity to propel further progressive fiscal reforms at an international level, thereby giving compliance to an explicit request by G20 countries to adopt such measures in the recent Rio de Janeiro G20 Ministerial Declaration on International Tax Cooperation. Among those initiatives, which are being currently debated as potential early protocols to the UN Tax Convention, is the taxation of high-net-worth individuals (in line with the blueprint report for a global minimum standard for the taxation of the ultra-rich elaborated by Dr Gabriel Zucman), and the establishment of environmental taxes paving the path for adequate climate financing.

Both these platforms can also serve as sensible tools by which to amplify the fiscal space that States can rely upon to fund transformational public policies to reduce inequalities, provide quality public services, and meet the challenges posed by the climate emergency, thereby protecting and fulfilling human rights by international legal obligations.