TIPS FOR ACCESSING SESSIONS  

• If you are following along live please click the 'WATCH LIVE' link so that you automatically move into the next session - that way you can always access the Q&A feature and session documents on each of the session landing pages (the live discussion button is in the bottom right hand corner on each of the session pages)   
• If you missed a session you can access the replay by heading to the 'Agenda', find the session you missed, then click on that session - there you will find the replay as well as the discussion and any papers and materials relevant to the session.    
• Click on the 'Discussions' link in the top menu to chat in the conference discussion boards and share material or contact the conference organsiers throughout the week    
• Click on the 'Attendees' tab to interact with other conference participants, chat and make connections, and make your profile visible to others.   
• All sessions will be live interpreted into Spanish (and into English where panellists intervene in Spanish) - access the interpretation function on any of the session pages - look for the red link under the session information!    
• Please leave feedback on the sessions you watched so we can improve and learn for next time around! You'll find the option to leave feedback on any of the previous session pages (accessed by clicking on the previous session in the agenda) - Click to register in the session to see the feedback option.

CONFERENCE BACKGROUND

Each year, over $427 billion in tax is lost to the most egregious forms of international corporate and individual tax abuse. This costs countries around the world the equivalent of nearly 34 million nurses’ annual salaries every year – or one nurse’s annual salary every second. But while the expansion of research into credible measurement of these tax losses has helped to drive forward international policy responses, these responses are often disconnected from the human costs that result. This reflects a failure to properly consider “the 4 Rs of taxation”.  

Without tax justice, states cannot raise the revenues to meet their obligations to provide the maximum available resources to promote human rights. Without effective taxation, states cannot deliver the level of redistribution necessary to combat gross inequalities. Without a functioning tax system, states cannot achieve the repricing of public “bads” such as carbon emissions, to ensure sustainable development. And last but far from least, without fair and transparent taxation, we do not see the development of effective political representation necessary to ensure accountable governments based on a healthy social contract.  

In 2021, the UN’s High Level Panel on International Financial Accountability, Transparency and Integrity (FACTI) has thrown down the gauntlet. The Panel’s final report calls for a fundamental overhaul of the global architecture around tax and financial transparency, in order to address global inequalities in taxing rights between countries. Such an overhaul is crucial to ensuring that all states can deliver the 4 Rs.  

The tax justice movement has in recent years worked ever more closely with human rights organisations to confront tax injustices and the resulting human rights failures, including the critical failures of women’s rights. Existing international legal instruments such as the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights have been utilised to enforce accountability, while domestic mass mobilisation campaigns have sought to raise public awareness and demands for action.