The background paper provides a critical analysis of the proposals made by the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) secretariat of the OECD in the paper titled, “Implementation of the Principles of ODA Modernization on Private Sector Instruments,” which is yet to be made public. The DAC’s proposals would allow a wide variety of private sector instruments to be used as vehicles for international aid. This means an increase in the possible use of aid to invest in or give loans…
By Kavaljit Singh | Commentary | November 25, 2016
On Monday, the US President-elect Donald Trump announced that the US will pull out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade pact on his first day in office (January 20). In a video message outlining his policy plans for the first 100 days in the Oval Office, Trump stated: “I am going to issue a notification of intent to withdraw from TPP, a potential disaster for our country. Instead, we will negotiate fair, bilateral trade deals that bring jobs and…
By Alfred de Zayas | Guest Blog | November 17, 2016
My 2016 report to the UN General Assembly (A/71/286) on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order is devoted to tax evasion, tax fraud and tax havens. In this report, I recall that the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights do not contain any provision concerning the obligation of businesses to pay their fair share of taxes. There is no mention of tax evasion, tax fraud or tax havens. Nor is there any mention in…
We, the undersigned human rights, environmental and development organizations, urge all governments to place human rights at the core of international economic agreements, by integrating human rights protections into international investment and trade agreements and to ensure that these agreements do not impair governments’ abilities to respect, protect and fulfill their human rights obligations. Most urgently, we call on decision-makers considering entry into bilateral or multilateral trade and investment agreements to reject agreements that do not have human rights…
On the interpretation of the standard for fair and equitable treatment, India’s joint interpretative statement clarifies that the concept of FET “does not require treatment in addition to or beyond that what is required by the customary international law minimum standard of treatment of aliens, and does not create additional substantive rights.” The minimum standard of treatment of aliens is a norm of customary international law which provides a minimum set of principles for states to respect while dealing…
