Philip Alston on Tax, Inequality, and Human Rights

Описание: Professor Philip Alston at the School of Law, Trinity College Dublin, on his recent book, ‘Tax, Inequality, and Human Rights' (with Nikki Reisch, OUP 2019), Wednesday, 11 November 2020.

Philip G. Alston is John Norton Pomeroy Professor of Law at New York University School of Law. Professor Alston co-chairs the NYU Center for Human Rights and Global Justice and teaches international law, human rights law, economic and social rights, and strategic human rights litigation. As both a scholar and practitioner, his current work focuses on the human rights dimensions of issues such as neoliberal economic policies, climate change, artificial intelligence, and poverty elimination. He previously taught at the European University Institute, the Australian National University, Harvard Law School, and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.

Between 2014 and July of this year, he was UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights. From 2004 to 2010, he was UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, monitoring unlawful killings around the world and he has also held numerous other high level positions within the UN.

About 'Tax, Inequality, and Human Rights' (OUP 2019):

In ‘Tax, Inequality, and Human Rights’, experts in human rights law and in tax law debate the linkages between the two fields and highlight how each can help to tackle rapidly growing inequality in the economic, social, and political realms. Against a backdrop of systemic corporate tax avoidance, widespread use of tax havens, persistent pressures to embrace austerity policies, and growing gaps between the rich and poor, this book encourages readers to understand fiscal policy as human rights policy, and thus as having profound consequences for the well-being of citizens around the world. Prominent scholars and practitioners examine how the foundational principles of tax law and human rights law intersect and diverge; discuss the cross-border nature and human rights impacts of abusive practices like tax avoidance and evasion; question the reluctance of states to bring transparency and accountability to tax policies and practices; highlight the responsibility of private sector actors for shaping and misshaping tax laws; and critically evaluate domestic tax rules through the lens of equality and non-discrimination. The contributing authors also explore how international human rights obligations should influence the framework for both domestic and international tax reforms. They address what human rights law requires of state tax policies and how tax laws and loopholes affect the enjoyment of human rights by people outside a state's borders. Because tax and human rights both turn on the relationship between the individual and the state, neo-liberalism's erosion of the social contract threatens to undermine them both.