The New UN Framework Convention: Could ‘Majority Rule’ Doom the Effort to Failure?

Although the United Nations has long played a role in setting international tax policy, since 2013 the OECD has taken center stage in that space as it addresses base erosion and profit shifting in its BEPS Project. This has led many countries in the developing world to seek an alternative forum, the UN, to formulate and adopt international tax policies that address concerns that, they argue, have largely been ignored by the OECD’s Inclusive Framework. In this Talking Points, Lotfi Sellami Khelil examines the UN process and its most recent debate, and wonders whether a solution that relies solely on majority rule could doom the entire effort to failure.