The UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation: Negotiating an End to Tax Injustice?

It is estimated that countries are losing roughly $500 billion in revenue per year to global cross-border tax abuse, with losses disproportionately concentrated in the world’s least developed countries (Tax Justice Network, 2024). While international efforts to reform the international tax framework to reign in these abuses have gathered force in recent years, the incremental and partial nature of reforms led by the OECD has also prompted scepticism as to their likely efficacy. This has led to renewed efforts, led by countries in the Global South, to launch a more ambitious and internationally inclusive tax reform effort centred on the UN. Following three years of negotiation, these efforts have now culminated in the stage, as affirmed in votes in the general assembly of UN member states, of drafting terms of reference for a full framework convention on international tax reform. This aims to not only address international tax abuse at a technical level, but also the international power imbalances in the tax governance and reform framework itself.

This special issue will provide a timely complement as well as commentary on this ongoing UN-led tax reform process by bringing together a combination of cutting-edge empirical research on worldwide tax abuse and offshore investment structures with detailed supporting visuals as well as commentaries by leading academic experts and stakeholders who have been directly and indirectly involved in the UN tax convention negotiation process. It will provide a state-of-the-art overview of both the scope of the issue of tax avoidance and the specific types of mechanisms that are needed to address this issue, situated in the historical context of prior international initiatives and agreements, and their shortcomings (e.g. as centered on the OECD). This special issue thereby aims to provide a critical interdisciplinary perspective on the opportunity to create a globally inclusive and effective forum to curb international tax abuse and promote financial transparency.

Topics of interest

We welcome submissions related to, but not limited to, the following themes:

• The evolution and architecture of offshore investments and tax abuse.
• Quantitative analyses of cross-border illicit financial flows and their policy implications.
• Regional perspectives on international tax cooperation, including Africa’s role in the UN negotiations.
•  Historical developments in international tax governance and their relevance to the UN Framework.
• Critical assessments of OECD tax reform measures, including Pillars 1 and 2.
• The intersection of tax justice and financing for development in the age of global inequalities.