Taxation and the Realisation of Socioeconomic Rights in Africa: What Is the Role of International Cooperation?

Description

This was a presentation I made at the Economic and Social Rights Academic Network United Kingdom and Ireland (ESRAN-UKI) workshop at the University of Essex. The accepted abstract reads as follows.

Socioeconomic rights (SR) aim to address people’s essential material needs, hence their realisation is central towards addressing extreme poverty. Unfortunately, the realisation of these rights is excruciatingly lacking in most African states. A common argument advanced for this non-realisation is that African states cannot fulfil these rights owing to resource constraints. Several scholars have highlighted the essentialness of an effective state tax revenue assessment and collection system towards addressing these resource constraints. Some scholars argue that African states should be accountable for how they use tax revenue to eliminate or reduce extreme poverty. However, existing literature also suggests that the international tax system promotes the interests of the elites, in individual and state perspectives, while attenuating social welfare for the poor. Beyond domestic taxation policy and duty to realise SR locally in Africa, there is an extraterritorial obligation on developed states to help African states in harnessing taxes to realise SR. Drawing on existing human rights instruments and literature, this paper locates and develops an international cooperation model, as a useful vehicle for realisation of SR in Africa. Through the lens of Third-World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL), it engages with the structural and economic imbalances between developed states and developing states, which make most African states unable to effectively deploy taxation to realise SR. To achieve this goal, the paper first problematises the duty to cooperate internationally, and then assesses the evolving normative framework on international cooperation on taxation as a tool for realisation of SR. The paper discusses the limits and latitudes of this duty to cooperate. It argues that the duty expects developed states to, among others, provide economic and technical support, avoid being tax havens, deploy their power and influence in the Bretton Woods institutions, and ensure that their multinational corporations operating in Africa are not only tax law-compliant, but also complying with human rights obligations.

Period	2 Feb 2024
Held at	Economic and Social Rights Academic Network United Kingdom and Ireland
Degree of Recognition	Regional