United Nations

Carrotestein: Tax Incentives for Digital Companies, WTO Agreements, and Harmful Tax Competition

The Post-COVID19 path to economic recovery in Latin America and the Caribbean will demand both Domestic Revenue Mobilization measures and the promotion of domestic and foreign investment. Amid all the controversy surrounding the concession of tax incentives, the COVID-19 pandemic taught us a lesson: nothing is a sole economic issue. Public policies should address other concerns such as employment, health, environment, and education. A well-designed package of governmental measures may be a balanced proposal that includes diverse public interests to achieve optimal delivery of public goods. This post will focus on the granting of tax incentives for the digital economy in  accordance with the GATT, the GATS, and the OECD’s recommendations on harmful tax competition.

The Law of Global Value Chains as Transmission Nodes for Global Inequality

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the weaknesses of the current patterns of production and consumption, exemplified by GVCs and the global trade and investment order in which they operate. These fragilities have resulted in the aforementioned social, economic and financial crises but what they represent most of all, is a crisis of responsibility in which powerful actors, state and private, that have been the main beneficiaries of GVCs, have failed to discharge their ethical and normative obligations to those most vulnerable within their production and supply chains. To this end, a new approach is sorely needed to address the vulnerabilities of a global economy built on fragile GVC governance that serves as new nodes of global inequality and precarity.

Review IV: Energy Poverty and Access Challenges in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Role of Regionalism

This work assumes a benchmark position naturally when it comes to insightful discussion on energy access challenges in SSA. The readers will not only enjoy the reading but also aggregate value to their vision on the pivotal role of the regionalism as a tool through which SSA countries may gradually invert the status quo of energy access challenges.

Review I: Energy Poverty and Access Challenges in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Role of Regionalism

Nalule’s book is a comprehensive critical analysis of the energy access and energy poverty issues that plague Sub-Saharan Africa (“SSA”). She conducts this discourse within the energy transition discussion and presents it through the lens of the sustainable development theory.

The Importance of Intellectual Property and International Investment Agreements for Overcoming the “Peripheral Economy Trap”: A Response to Ian Taylor’s “Sixty Years Later: Africa’s Stalled Decolonization

Book Symposium Introduction: Sovereign Debt Restructuring: The Role and Limits of Public International Law

I am delighted to introduce the book symposium on my new monograph titled Sovereign Debt Restructuring: The Role and Limits of Public International Law. Unfortunately, the time could not be riper to discuss the role played by international law in sovereign debt restructuring. In fact, as a consequence of the ongoing economic recession caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the world is facing a new systemic sovereign debt crisis.

Beyond Intellectual Property? “Open science” to overcome COVID-19

There is no doubt that solving this pandemic is the most pressing challenge of our time. This is not a zero sum game. Below, I elaborate on the four points for effective global solidarity to tackle the pandemic.

Webinar I: Farmers’ Rights in the International Legal Architecture for Food and Agriculture

This webinar will examine the links between Farmers’ Rights (as established in the ITPGRFA) and related international treaties alongside the right to food and gender perspectives on Farmers’ Rights.