The Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP) along with more than 147 civil society organisations and trade unions have jointly called for a stronger and more ambitious United Nations Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation. They warned that the current draft fails to address major challenges in the global tax system.

In a joint submission addressed to Ramy M. Youssef, Chair of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) and Daniel Nuer, Co-Lead of Workstream I, the organisations urged governments to strengthen the draft negotiating text released on 22 January 2026. The submission was coordinated by the Global Alliance for Tax Justice (GATJ), a Southern-led global coalition advocating for fairer international tax rules.

Read the Submission for Workstream-1 here in English, Spanish and French.

The submission was coordinated by the Global Alliance for Tax Justice (GATJ) with the support of its members Tax Justice Network Africa (TJN-A) and European Network on Debt and Development (Eurodad).

The organisations underlined that the current draft lacks the ambition and concrete mechanisms needed to build “an inclusive, fair, transparent, efficient, equitable and effective international tax system for sustainable development.” They argue that without stronger commitments, the Convention will not effectively address global tax abuse, illicit financial flows and growing inequality.

The joint submission calls for the Convention to include clear provisions on fair allocation of taxing rights between countries, equitable taxation of multinational enterprises and effective taxation of high-net-worth individuals. It also proposes stronger transparency measures such as public country-by-country reporting, beneficial ownership registers and the creation of a Global Asset Register to track wealth and financial assets.

Civil society groups also urge governments to link tax systems more clearly with sustainable development, human rights obligations and gender equality, including through progressive environmental taxation based on the polluter-pays principle.

The organisations further emphasize the importance of maintaining a transparent and inclusive negotiation process, ensuring that all countries can participate equally and that civil society observers are able to contribute meaningfully to the discussions.

As negotiations continue, civil society groups say the UN Tax Convention represents a historic opportunity to reform global tax governance and ensure that multinational corporations and the wealthiest individuals contribute fairly to financing sustainable development.

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