Sustainability

‘Taxation, Human Rights, and Sustainable Development- Global South Perspectives’ is an enjoyable and accessible read for those looking to understand more about domestic, regional, and international fiscal policy relevant to the human rights and sustainable development discourse.

Many discussions of human rights and economic policy feel aspirational, treating rights as guiding principles but stopping short of turning them into concrete legal or administrative action. The edited volume Taxation, Human Rights, and Sustainable Development: Global South Perspectives takes a different path. It digs into the hard work of turning human rights into working law and policy for taxation, viewed through experiences and priorities in the Global South.

Human rights play an integral role in State revenue sourcing and taxation in different parts of the world. For countries in the Global South, it should be an obligation to consider human rights in their tax policies and legislation as they need a sustainable revenue source to meet their socio-economic responsibilities (the welfare state) of which tax revenue is major slant. This goes to the foundations of a good tax system. Drawing lessons from the Global South, this book examines whether human rights can be invoked in the debate on creating effective tax regimes across the various jurisdictions.

On May 2-5, 2023, two of our Editors attended the workshop entitled Trade and Climate Action: Shifting the Paradigm for a Just Transition and Sustainable Development in Bridgetown, Barbados.

To address the idea of sustainability in the allocation of profits, two aspects are required: on the one hand, there is a need for a sustainability index, and on the other hand, there is a need for standardised sustainability indicators that are determined and published by companies worldwide. For developing countries, this should mean to be a frontrunner in this development and push forward the idea, always keeping in mind the risks but also chances of a sustainability in substance approach.

A sustainability objective will foreground sustainability-based assessment in lieu of a traditional impact assessment mode which is founded on the triple bottom line approach. Centering ‘sustainability’ as a key objective, also, makes a no-contract decision a necessary option when it is shown that a prospective project endangers the environment or at-risk-ecosystems. This option appears not to have been considered in the Guide. The Guide on ALIC provides an opportunity to rethink land use agreements from the ground-up.