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GI-ESCR at the 5th Session of the UN Tax Convention Negotiations
DAY 1
The fifth session of negotiations for a United Nations Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation opened in New York on 3 August 2026 with an immediate reminder that the legitimacy of the future international tax system will depend not only on the rules States adopt, but also on who is allowed into the room to shape them.
Before substantive negotiations began, Türkiye opposed the participation of the Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC), an organisation with a history spanning more than three decades and a key role in the human rights movement in Africa. It raised allegations concerning the organisation’s financial conduct and urged other States to vote against its inclusion. China and Bangladesh joined Türkiye in voting against the organisation’s participation.
Fortunately, an overwhelming majority of States rejected this attempt, with more than 40 delegations voting to allow KHRC to participate. Ireland expressly defended inclusive, multistakeholder engagement and the inclusion of non-governmental organisations.
The outcome was welcomed. The precedent, however, remains deeply troubling. It is not the first time that States have voted against the participation of individual NGOs in this space.
Civil society participation in negotiations concerning a global tax convention should not depend on whether individual States are willing to tolerate organisations that may scrutinise their conduct. Nor should participation be vulnerable to allegations raised from the floor, without a transparent and consistent process for assessing them. Any objection to the accreditation of a civil society organisation must be handled through fair procedures that protect organisations from arbitrary or politically motivated exclusion.
Far from being an isolated incident, this episode illustrates a broader structural trend towards limiting participation in the new tax regime. In the current zero draft, articles 13 and 14 establish the future Conference of the States Parties and its subsidiary bodies but contain no guarantees for the participation of civil society, affected communities, trade unions, researchers or other relevant stakeholders.
This is a significant omission. The Convention is intended to create an evolving framework, with many of its rules, implementation mechanisms and future protocols to be developed after its adoption. Unless meaningful participation is protected in the Convention itself, access to future meetings may be left entirely to rules of procedure negotiated later by States.
Civil society must be able to do more than observe from the back of the room. The Convention should guarantee timely access to information and negotiating documents, opportunities to submit written contributions, the ability to intervene in meetings, participation in subsidiary bodies and consultations, and transparent procedures for organising side events and contributing technical expertise.
These safeguards should apply not only during the present negotiations, but throughout the future life of the Convention.
A New Framework or a Vehicle for Preserving the Status Quo?
The first substantive debate concerned the objectives and principles contained in Articles 1 and 2. A recurring dividing line emerged over whether the Convention should establish a genuinely new and equitable framework or merely complement the international tax architecture that already exists.
Several delegations, led largely but not exclusively by countries from the Global North, called for explicit language requiring consistency, complementarity or synergies with existing tax instruments and institutions.
The European Union, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Austria, Japan, Italy and others warned against duplication, parallel rules and legal uncertainty.
Legal coherence and predictability are legitimate concerns. However, avoiding duplication cannot become a euphemism for insulating existing institutions and standards from democratic scrutiny or substantive reform.
The present international tax architecture was developed through forums in which many developing countries did not participate on an equal footing. It has also failed to prevent most countries from losing approximately USD 492 billion every year to cross-border tax abuse.
These are resources that could otherwise support public health systems, education, social protection, climate action and other economic, social and cultural rights.
States have an obligation to mobilise and use the maximum of their available resources for the realisation of economic, social and cultural rights. International tax rules are therefore not simply a technical matter. They directly affect whether governments can finance the public services and institutions required to fulfil those obligations.
A UN Tax Convention will not fulfil its mandate if it simply incorporates standards developed elsewhere or limits itself to identifying gaps left by existing initiatives.
Its transformative potential lies precisely in enabling all States to negotiate international tax rules on an equal footing and to reconsider arrangements that have produced unequal taxing rights and persistent revenue losses.
This point was strongly articulated by Kenya, which emphasised that the mandate is to establish a new framework, rather than simply complement what already exists. Kenya also noted that existing arrangements have not been equitable, particularly for developing countries.
Brazil similarly warned that inserting references to other forums into the Convention’s objectives could place the UN process in a subordinate role. Tanzania stressed that the mandate is not to mirror existing instruments but to develop a new framework, while Algeria noted that current agreements are imperfect and must be reviewed, improved and updated.
The African Group, India and several other delegations also argued that questions concerning the relationship between the Convention and existing instruments should be addressed in the article specifically dedicated to that issue, rather than being inserted into the Convention’s objectives and principles.
Why Article 21 Is Significant
This makes the defence of the current Article 21 especially important.
As presently conceived, Article 21 would create a legal duty for States Parties to work progressively towards adapting their existing international tax agreements to the Convention.
It would not automatically invalidate or override bilateral treaties. Nor would it impose immediate and unpredictable changes. Its implementation would instead take place gradually, including through subsequent decisions and processes under the Conference of the States Parties.
This is precisely what can provide legal certainty and predictability: a common direction of travel combined with progressive implementation.
Removing or weakening this obligation would risk leaving the Convention disconnected from the dense network of existing tax treaties through which taxing rights are currently allocated.
A framework convention must be capable of evolving, but evolution requires a legal bridge between its new principles and the rules already in force. Article 21 provides that bridge.
Human Rights and Sustainable Development Enter the Debate
The afternoon discussion offered some encouraging signs.
- Brazil called for stronger references to human rights, gender, race and progressive taxation, as well as a mechanism for periodic review by the Conference of the States Parties.
- Mexico supported the inclusion of human rights and explicit economic, social and cultural rights priorities.
- Jamaica highlighted the environmental pillar of sustainable development and referred to common but differentiated responsibilities and the International Court of Justice’s climate advisory opinion.
- Norway and the United Kingdom also supported strengthening the draft’s human rights and environmental dimensions.
These interventions underscore what is at stake.
International tax cooperation is not an isolated technical exercise. Decisions about taxing rights, illicit financial flows and corporate tax avoidance determine whether States possess the resources required to meet their human rights obligations and respond to the climate emergency.
The opening day therefore revealed two interconnected battles that will shape the Convention’s future:
- Whether the UN process will be genuinely open to civil society and to those affected by international tax rules.
- Whether the Convention will transform an unequal international tax architecture or be confined by the standards and institutions it was created to improve.
On Day 1, civil society’s presence in the room was successfully defended. The task now is to ensure that such participation becomes a permanent right and that the Convention retains the ambition necessary to deliver meaningful change.
DAY 2
The second day of negotiations on the UN Tax Convention moved into some of its most consequential substantive provisions: the fair allocation of taxing rights, the taxation of high-net-worth individuals and tax-related illicit financial flows.
Across Articles 5, 6 and 7, a recurring question emerged: will the Convention merely encourage States to cooperate, or will it establish concrete obligations capable of changing how taxing rights and revenues are distributed internationally?
Article 5: What Does a ‘Fair Allocation’ of Taxing Rights Require?
Article 5 sits at the heart of the Convention. It concerns the fair allocation of taxing rights, including how taxation should respond to increasingly globalised and digitalised economic activity.
For many developing countries and regional organisations, the provision is fundamental to the promise of a more equitable international tax system. The African Union stressed that Article 5 is one of the Convention’s central provisions, providing an assurance that countries will be able to tax wealth generated within their jurisdictions. The African Tax Administration Forum (ATAF) similarly supported the African Group’s approach and stressed that achieving a genuinely fair allocation of taxing rights may require the renegotiation of existing tax treaties.
This debate goes directly to the question raised on the first day of negotiations: whether the Convention will meaningfully reshape existing international tax arrangements or operate largely within their constraints.
Civil society interventions pushed delegates to think more ambitiously about what ‘fair allocation’ should mean. CCFD-Terre Solidaire called for the Convention to provide the future Conference of the Parties with a mandate to develop a framework for taxing multinational enterprises on the basis of their total profits, pointing toward unitary taxation as a viable alternative to the existing system.
Public Services International (PSI), meanwhile, highlighted a striking omission from the factors relevant to value creation: labour. Workers are affected by international tax policy, while their labour contributes directly to the economic activity and profits that States are attempting to tax. PSI therefore called for labour to be explicitly recognised within Article 5.
Others focused on the changing nature of economic activity. Several interventions stressed that taxing rights cannot depend exclusively on physical presence. Digital services, remote economic activity and other evolving business models increasingly allow companies to generate substantial revenues within jurisdictions without maintaining a traditional physical presence there. Questions of ‘value creation’, ‘real economic contribution’ and the role of users and markets therefore remain central to determining how taxing rights should be allocated.
These discussions demonstrate why Article 5 cannot be reduced to the avoidance of double taxation or double non-taxation. Fair allocation is also a distributive question: which States should have the right to tax cross-border income, and on what basis?
Article 6: Will the Convention Commit States to Taxing High-Net-Worth Individuals?
Article 6 produced one of the clearest debates of the day over the strength of the Convention’s obligations.
A broad group of delegations argued that the current draft has been weakened compared with earlier versions. India questioned the replacement of language requiring States to ‘develop and implement’ measures with the softer commitment to cooperate to enhance’ them. It also challenged the addition of the word ‘general’ before ‘information’ in relation to exchanges concerning high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) and questioned the weakening of language on coordinated taxation from a firmer commitment to merely ‘exploring’ coordinated approaches.
Brazil, Zambia (speaking on behalf of the African Group), Kenya, Honduras, Pakistan, Morocco, South Africa and others supported variations of the same basic position: Article 6 should impose an obligation to act rather than simply an obligation to discuss cooperation.
The African Group proposed restoring ‘develop and implement’ in paragraph 1, deleting ‘general’ from the information-sharing provision, and replacing ‘explore’ with ‘adopt’ in relation to coordinated approaches. It also opposed the specific reference to sovereignty in Article 6, arguing that sovereignty is already recognised among the Convention’s overarching principles.
Kenya similarly argued that these changes would turn Article 6 into a more meaningful implementation commitment, while Nigeria questioned the logic of repeatedly invoking sovereignty in a treaty that States voluntarily agree to be bound by.
There was, however, considerable agreement across negotiating blocs on one problem: who counts as a high-net-worth individual (HNWI)?
Delegations repeatedly called for greater clarity or a definition of HNWI. Yet a single global monetary threshold would create its own problems. A level of wealth considered exceptional in one country may have an entirely different significance in another.
One civil society proposal offered an alternative: define HNWIs relative to the distribution of wealth within each State, using a common methodology periodically updated by the Conference of the Parties. This could provide a common international standard while accounting for very different national economic circumstances.
The debate matters far beyond tax administration. HNWIs are particularly capable of structuring wealth and assets across jurisdictions, making purely domestic approaches insufficient. Effective taxation therefore requires international cooperation, access to information, and, potentially, coordinated approaches to taxation.
As several civil society interventions emphasised, the consequences are distributive. When those with the greatest resources can avoid taxation, the burden shifts downward while governments lose resources that could otherwise finance education, health, social protection, and other economic and social rights.
Article 7: What Makes a Financial Flow “Illicit”?
If Article 6 exposed disagreements over the strength of commitments, Article 7 revealed a more fundamental disagreement over definitions.
The provision addresses tax-related illicit financial flows (IFFs), tax avoidance, and tax evasion. Delegations broadly agreed that cross-border tax abuse requires international cooperation. They disagreed sharply, however, over how these concepts relate to one another.
Several delegations, including Czechia, Germany, Austria, the United Kingdom, Singapore and Poland, raised concerns about treating tax avoidance and tax evasion as forms of illicit financial flows. Their central objection was that tax avoidance can involve conduct that remains lawful under domestic legislation, whereas ‘illicit’ could be interpreted as referring to illegal activity. They therefore called for clearer distinctions among the concepts.
The African Group and several developing countries approached the issue differently. Zambia, speaking for the African Group, called for stronger language requiring States to ‘develop and implement measures’ to combat tax-related illicit financial flows rather than simply ‘cooperate’. India similarly stressed the relationship among illicit financial flows, tax evasion and tax avoidance and supported restoring an obligation to develop and implement measures.
Algeria emphasised the stakes for African countries, which lose enormous resources through illicit financial flows, and warned that replacing an obligation to act with an obligation merely to cooperate weakens the Convention. Senegal likewise argued against simply deleting references to avoidance and evasion, noting that the three concepts may overlap even if they are not identical.
Nigeria articulated one of the central conceptual disagreements particularly clearly: ‘illicit’ need not necessarily mean ‘illegal’. Conduct can comply formally with the law while nevertheless undermining the tax base and defeating the purpose of tax rules.
ATAF made a similar argument. From its perspective, the Terms of Reference require the Convention to address tax avoidance, tax evasion and illicit financial flows, all of which can produce the same consequence for developing countries: the depletion of resources needed for development. ATAF therefore defended language broad enough to encompass aggressive tax planning even where individual arrangements remain technically lawful.
A possible route through the disagreement emerged from civil society: rather than defining avoidance and evasion as necessarily ‘illicit’, Article 7 could impose parallel duties to combat tax-related illicit financial flows and to combat tax avoidance and tax evasion. This could preserve the substantive scope of the provision without forcing agreement that all three concepts are legally identical.
The Question Running Through Day 2
The negotiations over Articles 5, 6 and 7 concerned very different areas of international taxation, but the same tension repeatedly surfaced.
Should the Convention require States to develop, implement and adopt measures, or merely to cooperate, enhance and explore?
Those distinctions may appear technical. They are not.
A framework convention necessarily leaves substantial detail to future protocols, decisions and institutional processes. But if its core provisions establish only broad aspirations to cooperate, future negotiations may begin without a sufficiently strong legal foundation for reform.
Article 5 will help determine where profits can be taxed. Article 6 will determine how seriously the international community confronts the ability of extremely wealthy individuals to structure their affairs across borders. Article 7 will determine the scope of cooperation against financial practices that drain States of revenue.
In each case, the question is ultimately whether the Convention will simply facilitate cooperation within the international tax system as it currently exists, or establish commitments capable of changing it.
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