GENEVA - The UN Independent Expert on foreign debt and human rights, Attiya Waris, today urged Member States to fundamentally reorient international assistance and cooperation toward fiscal legitimacy, stressing that global financial governance must serve people and their rights and not merely economic indicators.
International assistance is a legal obligation, not an act of charity, and it must be grounded in legality, transparency, accountability, efficiency, effectiveness, fairness and justice," Waris said, presenting her latest report to the UN Human Rights Council.
"Failures in global tax governance, escalating sovereign debt burdens, and unchecked illicit financial flows are eroding States' ability to uphold minimum essential levels of economic, social, and cultural rights," she warned.
Emphasising the need for urgent reform, the expert called for a UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation to ensure equitable global tax rules, rights‑based sovereign debt mechanisms that guarantee timely, inclusive, and human‑rights‑consistent restructuring and robust international action to curb illicit financial flows draining resources from countries least able to absorb the loss.
She also urged International Financial Institutions to realign voting power, expand grant‑based financing, and embed human rights impact assessments into their programmes.
"The current global financial architecture, shaped by historical inequities, too often extracts resources rather than enabling rights," Waris said. "Transformational change is essential to place dignity, equity, and human rights at the centre of global economic governance."
