We welcome the progress made by the Co-Lead with the draft text, and the opportunity to comment. In what follows, we address each of the five parts of the Convention in turn. We will provide more detailed commentary on individual articles on our dedicated webpage on the negotations.
In most of Parts I and II, we make relatively targeted drafting suggestions only. There remain, however, a number of more substantive concerns. We propose major reforms to Part III, and to a number of articles in Part IV. The latter, addressing institutional arrangements, is crucial to the future functioning of the framework body and the Conference of the Parties, and ultimately to the ability to deliver on – and be held accountable for – the agreed objectives. Part V also raises a number of significant questions for effective operation, and here we also make substantive proposals.
We highlight three key elements:
- The objectives and principles agreed in the terms of reference should not be diluted nor downgraded, and a chapeau should be introduced to link them directly to the commitments.
- The commitments made by signatories – even when ‘high level’ – must by definition go beyond the status quo, if the Convention is to deliver meaningful progress.
- Part IV must provide for the collation, analysis and publication of data such that the framework body can fulfil its role of delivering a fair allocation of taxing rights between states, and also be accountable for doing so. The success of the entire process depends on this.