International Tax Cooperation (a Coercive Reality Telling on Global South): African Group Resolution for New UN Tax Compact—Quick Shuffle from Convention to Cooperation

Abstract

The African Group Resolution entitled United Nations Convention on International Tax Cooperation moved at the General Assembly on October 10, 2022, ended up getting modified and adopted as Promotion of International Tax Cooperation at the United Nations, on November 23, 2022, in consequence to the deliberations at the Second Committee. The travel of the Resolution from Convention to Cooperation is reflective of deep-rooted simmering fissures between “global haves” and “global have-nots.” The fissures between the Global North and Global South, contextually, stem from an unjust international taxes system that awkwardly sits on lopsided allocation of taxing rights, manipulable mechanisms of taxation of MNCs, protected tax havenry, purchasable tax residency, and IFF-compatible-legal infrastructures. The Global South’s biggest quandary is their semantic occupation by a system of language straddling on law, tax, accountancy, finance, development, and diplomacy, which practically incapacitates them to think beyond the set conceptual confines – euphemistically dubbed as international tax cooperation. This paper – primarily written from the Global South’s perspective – is singularly geared to unravel the coercive implications of the international tax cooperation starting with the ECOSOC Resolution 1273 of 1967 to the African Group Resolution – and beyond into the future. At some level, it looks to set Global South’s agenda of engagement with Global North – urging to avoid pitfalls, forge unity in ranks, attain semantic liberation, “realistically” strategize, and take positions as a collectivity of states.