What do we gain from looking at debt from a human rights lens?
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On 10 September 2021, UN Secretary-General (SG) Antonio Guterres released the “Our Common Agenda” (OCA) report. This report was in response to a request from UN member states to “report back before the end of the seventy-fifth session of the General Assembly with recommendations to advance our common agenda and to respond to current and future challenges”.
UN member states are currently meeting, as part of a consultation process on the OCA report, to discuss these proposals. The report contains many concerning recommendations in relation to the global economic and financial architecture and has larger implications for democratic global governance.
Read the article
Swiss banks have been synonymous with secrecy for decades, conjuring up visions of vast riches safely held in mountain vaults. It’s a strong brand — one Switzerland’s government does everything it can to protect.
But what’s good for the banks’ wealthy clients can be bad for everyone else. When corrupt politicians or organized criminals turn to Switzerland to keep their money safe from prying eyes, the victims of their crimes will likely never see it again. And once dirty money makes it into a Swiss bank account, it’s free to go anywhere.
Switzerland’s draconian banking secrecy laws have made it nearly impossible for other governments or journalists to hold the industry to account. Until now.
Read the OCCRP reports
The use of TRIPS flexibilities by WTO members involves interpretation of the obligations under TRIPS which can be challenged under the WTO dispute settlement system. Mutually agreed solutions, panel or Appellate Body decisions adopted in such disputes can thus impact the scope of TRIPS flexibilities to address, among others, public health objectives. This paper explores how the WTO dispute settlement system applies to disputes under TRIPS, and reviews the outcomes of the disputes relating to the implementation of TRIPS obligations in the context of pharmaceutical products. The paper points to both systemic and substantive concerns arising from the application of the dispute settlement system to disputes under TRIPS. It finds that the dispute settlement system is not aligned to the unique nature of the TRIPS Agreement in the WTO as an agreement that creates positive obligations, and consequently how jurisprudence arising under disputes concerning other covered agreements having negative obligations, have led panels and Appellate Bodies to adopt narrow interpretations of the scope of TRIPS flexibilities in some of the few disputes arising under the TRIPS Agreement. Moreover, mutually agreed settlements adopted in the context of some of the disputes arising under TRIPS have also led to the adoption of TRIPS plus standards, limiting the scope of TRIPS flexibilities. However, in a recent decision, the WTO panel has also relied on the Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health as a subsequent agreement to guide the interpretation of its provisions. In this context, the paper advances some suggestions to address the systemic and substantive issues arising from the application of the dispute settlement system to the TRIPS Agreement.
Read the paper from the South Center
Increased public investment and greater mobilization of both domestic
and international resources for social spending will be crucial to achieving
an inclusive recovery in the postCOVID era. Currently, low- and middleincome countries invest, on average,
just one third of their total government expenditure in social spending (defined
here as education, health and social protection). Although social spending
has risen in many countries in response to COVID-19, it is unclear whether the
temporary increases will be maintained.
Read the UNICEF Report
Gender remains one of the key characteristics along which inequalities take
shape within countries and across the globe. In this paper, we analyze gender inequality from the perspective of labor income and explore the following
questions: Which share of labor income do women earn in a country, a world
region, and globally? How has this share evolved since 1990? Labor income
includes wages and salaries as well as the labor share of self-employment income. Our inequality indicator, the female labor income share, considers gender differentials in earnings as well as labour force participation.
Read the WID paper
The authors suggest a simple, feasible, pragmatic and affordable global strategy to support
the attainment of social protection for all as a central means to combat poverty,
inequality, insecurity and ill health.
Read the Policy paper by Michael Cichon and Hajo Lans
Inequality is deadly… It contributes to the deaths of at least 21,300 people each day—or one person every four seconds. This is a “highly conservative estimate” for deaths resulting from hunger, lack of access to healthcare and climate breakdown in poor countries…
This is what a confederation of 21 member organisations and affiliates, representing a global movement of people who are fighting inequality to end poverty and injustice has reported.
This confederation, Oxfam International, also cites inequality resulting from gender-based violence faced by women and rooted in “patriarchy and sexist economic systems.”
Read the article by Baher Kamal
Under the umbrella of the G20 and the OECD, the Inclusive Framework adopted on 8 October 2021 a two-pillar solution to address tax challenges arising from the digitalization of the economy. However, these solutions do not respond to the needs of many developing countries, in particular the global tax minimum rate of 15%, in a context where most developing countries, defined as Member States of the South Centre and the G-77+China, have an average effective tax rate higher than the adopted rate. This policy brief provides information of the current effective tax rates in some developing countries, and highlights why the minimum rate of 15% in Pillar Two is insufficient for them. Tax revenue mobilization is important for developing countries to achieve the sustainable development goals. It is thereby recommended that developing countries simply ignore Pillar Two and maintain their current higher rate or increase their rate to an appropriate level and enforce it through unilateral measures rather than the rule order under Pillar Two, which they will have to follow if they decide to implement it.
Read the Policy Brief of the South Centre
Covid-19 has provided a stark reminder that today’s world is both scarred by grotesque levels of inequality and populated by billions of vulnerable people. However, it has also stimulated renewed interest in “global public goods” (GPGs) and how this foundational idea might be utilized to address a range of social crises, including climate change.
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