"Global Justice Clinic and Partners Convince Human Rights Body to Investigate Impacts of Swiss Tax Policies on Women’s Rights", 25 Apr 2016

As the demands for tax justice mount in the wake of the Panama Papers leak, the UN’s leading expert body on women’s rights prepares to take on the issue of global tax abuse. The Global Justice Clinic (GJC), working closely with the Center for Economic and Social Rights (CESR) and coalition partners, has successfully convinced the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) to examine the impact of international tax abuse on human rights during the Committee’s review of Switzerland at its 65th Session this October.  This marks the first time that a human rights treaty body has expressly addressed cross-border tax abuses and the State policies that enable them. The Committee’s List of issues for the upcoming review, released in late March, asks Switzerland to “provide information on the measures taken to ensure that the State party’s tax and financial secrecy policy does not contribute to largescale tax abuse in foreign countries, thereby negatively impacting on resources available to realize women’s rights in those countries.”...