A/HRC/26/28
I. Introduction
1. Fiscal policies are a critical tool that States can employ to comply with their
international human rights obligations. They can play a major role in achieving equality,
tackling discrimination, and strengthening governance and accountability, as well as
combating poverty and funding development.
2. Revenue and expenditure are the two main instruments of fiscal policy. In policy and in
practice, they are complementary and intertwined. Both functions are critical to realizing
human rights, and human right norms apply to all aspects of fiscal policy. Given that
government expenditure has been subject to a considerable amount of analysis from the
perspective of human rights, however, the Special Rapporteur will focus on the revenueraising side of fiscal policy, in particular taxation. Although non-tax revenues are also
important for most States, taxation is the primary source of public resource generation,
besides being also the most sustainable and predictable source of financing for the
provision of public goods and services.1
3. In the present report, submitted pursuant to Human Rights Council resolution 17/13,,the
Special Rapporteur aims to put a human face on debates about tax collection, tax structures
and tax abuse. Although taxation policy may seem far removed from the daily problems of
the poor, it in fact plays a major role in determining and adjusting levels of inequality in a
society and in funding essential services, social protection and poverty reduction measures;
it is therefore central to realizing the rights and defining the opportunities of people living
in poverty. Mobilizing domestic resources is also a crucial step in the financing of the
Millennium Development Goals and the emerging post-2015 sustainable development
agenda, as well as in complying with existing commitments to make tax systems more propoor.2
4. Human rights obligations do not prescribe precise taxation policies, given that States
have the discretion to formulate the policies most appropriate to their circumstances.
However, a wide range of international treaties, such as the International Covenant on
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child,
impose limits on the discretion of States in the formulation of fiscal policies. In order to
ensure that States respect, protect and fulfil rights and to assist them in opening fiscal space
towards the realization of human rights, fiscal policies must be guided by the obligations
imposed by these treaties.
5. A State breaches its international obligation whenever its actions or omissions are not in
conformity with a specifically determined conduct required of it by that obligation; 3 for
example, actions or omissions that diminish public revenues by allowing large-scale tax
evasion or tax structures that have a disproportionate impact on the poorest segments of the
population could constitute violations of human rights obligations, such as the obligation to
allocate the maximum available resources to the enjoyment of economic, social and cultural
rights or to eliminate discrimination.4
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For example, in official development assistance, loans and borrowing, revenue from State-owned
enterprises or sale of State assets, and rents, concessions and royalties from natural resource
extraction.
See for example the Doha Declaration on Financing for Development (General Assembly resolution
63/239, annex), para. 16.
See Official Records of the General Assembly, Fifty-sixth Session, Supplement No. 10 (A/56/10).
Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights general comment No. 20 (E/C.12/GC/20).
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