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We are deeply concerned about the deadly protests in Kenya triggered by the introduction of regressive taxes and unjust structural reforms through the Finance Bill 2024. These policies are the result of the IMF imposing conditionalities on loans that continue to reshape economic policies and laws in Kenya and other countries in the Global South and that have disproportionately affected already impoverished and marginalized communities.

On May 22, 2024, more than 45 international organizations, including 22 ESCR-Net members, endorsed a letter calling on the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to adopt a holistic and pragmatic policy solution in addressing inequalities in taxation, the debt crisis, and climate justice. This solution, according to signees, should embrace ongoing conversations regarding the United Nations (UN) Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation as one of the essential steps to realizing the goal of urgent transformation of the global tax system to align with equality and comply with international human rights standards and principles.

This year, two of the most important climate litigation cases in which ESCR-Net has intervened had rulings from the European Court of Human Rights. On April 9, 2024, the Court handed down long-awaited judgments in two cases examining States’ climate change obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights: the cases of KlimaSeniorinnen and Duarte Agostinho.