Secretary General S Report To Ministers 2016

The OECD Secretary-General's annual report to ministers covers not only the activities of the SG and his office, horizontal programs and activities of the directorates but also the activities of its agencies and special entities.

This book sails in uncharted waters. It takes a human rights-based approach to tax havens, and is a detailed analysis of structures and the laws that generate and support these. It makes plain the unscrupulous or merely indifferent ways in which, using tax havens, businesses and individuals systematically undermine and for all practical purposes eliminate access to remedies under international human rights law. It exposes as abusive of human rights a complex structural web of trusts, companies, partnerships, foundations, nominees and fiduciaries; secrecy, immunity and smoke screens. It also lays bare the cynical manipulation by tax havens of traditional legal forms and conventions, and the creation of entities so bizarre and chimeric that they defy classification. Yet from the perspective of the tax havens themselves, these are entirely legitimate; the product of duly enacted domestic laws. This book is not a work of investigative journalism in the style of the Pulitzer Prize-winning authors of The Panama Papers, exposing political or financial corruption, money laundering or the financing of terrorism. All those elements are present of course, but the focus is on international human rights and how tax havens do not merely facilitate but actively connive at their breach. The tax havens are compromising the international human rights legal continuum.

Tax havens in offshore lands like Switzerland, the Cayman Islands and the Bahamas were once considered a rarity, the preserve of the super-rich. Today, they are big business available to the masses. Their goal? To avoid any form of accountability. Own nothing. Possess everything. Be answerable to no one. Where are these tax havens? What forms can they take? What future lies in store for them, and why should we care? An Anatomy of Tax Havens: Europe, the Caribbean and the United States of America answers these questions, and more, in the first comparative study in one volume of European, Caribbean and United States tax havens. It examines their simple origin to the extreme forms some take today, delving into the murky subculture that has deliberately made them impenetrably obscure. Uniquely, it combines detailed technical expertise (regulatory regimes, financial crime, legal and equitable structuring) with an analysis of their impact on domestic and global political, economic, environmental and social concerns. An Anatomy of Tax Havens is a fascinating, informative read for a broad readership; from legal, accountancy and tax practitioners to compliance regulators, law enforcement agencies, and students and researchers interested in business studies, taxation, and crime.

This book explains how transnational policy entrepreneurs have contributed to the transfer of the contested concept of ‘Policy Coherence for Sustainable Development’ (PCSD) in global policy. Tracing the processes by which the PCSD concept has been diffused in an international epistemic community linked to the EU and the OECD, the book offers new insights on international public administrations’ influence on global decision-making. It highlights the dynamic and multi-directional character of knowledge circulation in policy transfer. Drawing on case studies from France, the United Kingdom and Germany, the book contributes to current debates on sustainable development, revealing the role of actors and the logics behind ‘policy coherence’. Thus, it allows to understand the challenges involved in implementing SDG 17. Given its scope, the book will be of considerable interest to academic audiences and students of international relations and policy analysis, as well as practitioners and public officials whose work involves global sustainability policy.

This book presents a systematic analysis of the notion of control in the law of military occupation. The work demonstrates that in present-day occupations, control as such occurs in different forms and variations. The polymorphic features of occupation can be seen in the way states establish control over territory either directly or indirectly, and in the manner in which they retain, relinquish or regain it. The question as to what level and type of control is needed to determine the existence and ending of military occupation is explored in great detail in light of various international humanitarian law instruments. The book provides an anatomy of the required tests of control in determining the existence of military occupation based on the law. It also discusses control in relation to occupation by proxy and when and how the end of control over territory occurs so that military occupation is considered terminated. The study is informed by relevant international jurisprudence. It draws on numerous pertinent case studies from all over the world, various reports by different UN entities and other international organisations, as well as legal doctrine. The book will be a valuable resource for academics, researchers and practitioners working in the fields of international humanitarian law, international public law, and security studies

There is something visceral about ownership. This is mine; you can’t have it. This is mine; you can share it. This is ours. Try to find it. Contemporary literature and investigative journalism are showing that the scale of the problem of tax evasion, money laundering, organised crime, terrorism, bribery, corruption and gross human rights abuses is vast. Ownership – specifically, the quest to identify beneficial owners - has been chosen by national and international regulators as the touchstone, the litmus test in the fight back. An owner by definition must possess something for which they are financially accountable. But what is meant by "ownership"? This book explains why ownership is pivotal to accountability, and what ownership means in common law, civil law and Shariah law terms. It looks in detail at State, regional and international transparency strategies and at an equally powerful global private counter-initiative to promote beneficial ownership avoidance through the use of so-called "orphan structures". Where there is no owner, there is no accountability. The distinction between privacy and legitimate confidentiality on the one hand, and concealment on the other is explained with reference to commercial and trade law and practice, principles of corporate governance and applicable business human rights. This book introduces one further counter initiative: the phenomenon of transient ownership made possible through the use of cryptocurrency and the blockchain. The study concludes with a blueprint for action with recommendations addressed to states, international organisations, practitioners and other stakeholders.