CESR Taxation and Human Rights The objectives of CESRs proposal to Oxfam Novib are:

a)	To strengthen the capacity of tax justice and human rights advocates to work together, by developing tools, resources and spaces to develop a common knowledge base

b)	To bring about successful challenges to unfair tax policies by national and/or international human rights mechanisms in three country contexts, through collaborative advocacy partnerships between CESR and national tax justice organizations

Those objectives are to be attained through the following activities and outputs, as elaborated in the CESR proposal:

Developing tools and resources:
(i)	CESR will produce a guide, ResourcingRights: Human Rights and Tax Justice, aimed at sensitizing tax justice and human rights advocates about the linkage between the twofields, outlining the potential of using human rights norms and mechanisms in the pursuit of tax justice. The guide, and the strategy for its dissemination and use in training programs, will be developed in consultation with an advisory group of tax justice and human rights advocates.

(ii)	CESR will further elaborate the third step of its OPERA framework (on Resources), developing supplementary materials that introduce tools for monitoring fiscal policy from a human rights perspective and provide guidance on their implementation.

(iii)	CESR will contribute to the drafting, dissemination and use of the report on fiscal policy and human rights to be issued by the UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty in June 2014. This will be the first UN report to issue comprehensive recommendations to States on ensuring fiscal policy complies with human rights obligations. CESR has been involved in this process since itsinception, and will work to ensure these guidelines are used in advocacy to shape tax policy and practice nationally, regionally and globally.

Creating spaces:
(i)	In late 2014/early 2015 CESR will convene an international meeting and strategy session on Human Rights and Tax Justice, with cross-sectoral participation from CSOs working on tax justice, selected human rights NGOs, UN and regional human rights experts and mechanisms (e.g. NHRIs), litigators and progressive tax officials (e.g. Tax Inspector Unions). A key resource for the conference will be the report of the Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty, as well as a draft of CESR´s Tax and HumanRights guide, to be further revised following the meeting. The meeting is tentatively envisaged to be held in Lima, Peru or anothercountry where CESR plans to do national-level work.

Challenging Restrictive Fiscal Austerity:
CESR will challenges unfair tax policies by national and/or international human rights mechanisms in three different regional, political and economic contexts, through collaborative advocacy partnerships between CESR and national tax justice organizations:

(1)	Countries undergoing restrictive fiscal austerity packages: CESR has conducted important work in the last few years on the human rights consequences of austerity measuresin Ireland and Spain, and drafted the text of the Council of Europes 2013 recommendations on tax policy, which underlined the imperative of safeguarding human rights in times of economic crisis .  CESR will work in partnership with the European Network of National Human Rights Institutions (ENNHRI) to ensure that the Council recommendations are taken up by NHRI and CSOs to drive tax policyalternatives to austerity in select European countries. Depending on the support provided by ENNRHI, up to three workshops will be held, aimed at strengthening the capacity and political will of NHRIs in selected countries of southern and eastern Europe to review, monitor and challenge retrogressive fiscal austerity measures and to hold their governments to account for austerity-driven human rights setbacks.

(2)	Situations of political transition where significant threats/opportunities exist for fair fiscal policy (Egypt)  CESR is planning to continue its collaboration with the Oxfam Novib partners ECESR and EIPRin Egypt where regressive tax policy proposals are anticipated after the elections scheduled this year, at the same time that the new Constitution offers opportunities for possible litigation to challenge those policies.

(3)	A low or middle-income country where pronounced inequalities persist despite economic growth (Peru, or Bangladesh, or another country that falls in this category): CESRs aim is to identify the internal and external challenges preventing such countries from using progressive fiscal policies to reduce disparities and to ensure the benefits of growth are distributed equitably. Such challenges include the role of foreign multinational companies, such as extractive industries which continue to enjoy extremely generous tax incentives and collude in tax evasion and avoidance, and in thwarting the redistributive fiscal efforts of countries in which they operate. This analysis would serve as the basis for collaborative advocacy around an achievable policy reform addressing some of these challenges.


Leveraging human rights standards, instruments and mechanisms more effectively in global advocacy campaigns and interventions on tax justice:
(i)	Strengthening human rights perspectives in the Global Alliance for Tax Justice: CESR will participate as an active member of the Global Alliance to promote the significant potentialof using human rights norms, instruments and mechanisms in the pursuit of tax justice efforts at the global as well as regional andnational level. CESR can offer advice and support to tax justice advocates seeking to integrate human rights arguments or take advantage of human rights mechanisms in their national and international advocacy. It will also support specific advocacy campaigns to combat international tax abuse by bringing to bear complementary arguments on the human rights duties of tax haven countries, or multinational companies involved in transfer mispricing. For this purpose, CESR will aim to produce advocacy materials, as needed, promoting innovative, practical and accessible understandings of human rights principles and their implications for fiscal policy.

(ii)	Embedding tax justice in the post-2015 sustainable development framework: The debates surrounding the elaboration of a new set of post-2015 sustainable development goals (SDGs), their financing and their accountability structure, represent an important strategic opportunity to secure global commitments on tax justice and to ground these in human rights rationale. If designed right, the SDGs could provide an important instrument to compel governments to fashion more transparent, responsive, accountable and human rights-centered fiscal policies. CESR, individually and through its advocacy networks, has been instrumental in ensuring human rights remains at the centre of the post-2015 sustainable development framework to date. It will use this position to develop a concrete set of proposals for embedding fiscal justice concerns into the SDGs as a matter of human rights duty, in collaboration with others and on the basis of lessons learned from national-level experiences and the development of new tools, such as the Fair Tax Index. The recommendations will feed into the negotiation process led by the Inter-governmental Committee on Sustainable Development Financing, whose last meeting is scheduled for August 2014.