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	Business & Children Rights Online Portal by Ulf Karlberg Business and Human Rights Resource Centre   June 2011   The non-profit Business & Human Rights Resource Centre has launched an online portal on “Business & Children”.   The portal provides up-to-date information on the many ways that companies impact children’s rights.   Issues covered range from child labour to workplace parental leave; from sexual exploitation to education. Each topic includes a concise introduction followed by examples of positive initiatives companies are taking, allegations of abuses, and company responses.   The portal was launched at the June 2011 United Nations Human Rights Council meeting.   Ulf Karlberg, Co-Chair of trustees of the Resource Centre, said: “Approximately one third of the world’s people are children. No company can ignore its impact on this vulnerable sector of the population. The new portal brings news and reports on how companies are affecting children to an influential, global audience – helping people to make decisions that are in children’s best interest.”   Features of the portal include:   Issues: Brief introductions to subjects such as child labour, dangerous products, education, forced labour, pollution damaging health, pregnancy discrimination, sexual exploitation and trafficking, followed by links to relevant news and reports.   International standards relating to children’s rights and business; Positive initiatives; Alleged abuses; Lawsuits against companies; Practical guidance.   The portal also provides a prominent platform for the Children’s Rights & Business Principles Initiative.   This joint initiative by UNICEF, UN Global Compact and Save the Children aims to develop a set of principles offering concrete guidance on what business can do to respect and support children’s rights. The draft principles are open for public comment until 15 July 2011.   All the information on the portal is accessible free of charge. It comes from a broad range of sources, and reflects the excellent work being done on this subject by children’s rights organizations at the local, national and international levels.   The content is currently predominantly in English, with some items in Spanish and French. More material will be added on a regular basis – and the non-English language content expanded.   The Resource Centre encourages people of all ages and in all regions to send us suggested additions. Our researchers based in Colombia, Hong Kong, India, Senegal, South Africa and Ukraine will be in close touch with children’s rights advocates and businesspeople in their regions, to ensure we highlight their initiatives.   Annabel Short, Resource Centre Programme Director and manager of this project, said: “There is growing awareness globally of companies’ human rights responsibilities. In that context, we are delighted to launch this special portal focused on the rights of children.   We hope it provides increased recognition and accountability for children who are affected by corporate activities, NGOs with greater exposure of their work in this field, and business with tools and examples to follow.” Visit the related web page
	Time to institute a Financial Transaction Tax by Jubilee, ITUC, Poverty Matters & agencies   June 2011   Time to institute a Financial Transaction Tax, by Neil McCulloch.   In 1978, the Nobel prize laureate in economics James Tobin proposed levying a small tax on all foreign exchange transactions to penalise short-term speculators but not long-term investors.   These taxes are feasible. In fact, since Tobin"s day they have become more so. Due to changes in the way transactions are settled, it is now much easier for countries to unilaterally introduce certain forms of transaction taxes.   Indeed, lots of countries already have one in the form of stamp duty on share transactions. It would also be possible to have a tax on transactions in your own currency, eg the euro, since central banks have control of the issuance of their own currencies.   A transaction tax would have to be applied to a broad range of areas to avoid market actors simply moving away from taxed financial instruments to untaxed ones, and tax rates themselves would have to vary depending on what instrument you are taxing.   But clearly a multilateral tax would help prevent the kind of tax avoidance we might see if it was introduced in just one country.   How much these taxes would collect depends entirely on what you tax and at what rate. But the numbers are big.   We found that applying a 0.005% tax to foreign exchange markets alone might raise around $25bn per year worldwide. The revenue potential in the UK would be around $11bn, roughly as much as the entire UK overseas aid budget. Applying a financial transaction tax (FTT) on other markets, for example derivatives and over the counter markets, would raise much larger sums.   Overall if these taxes were appropriately designed, they are no more likely to increase market volatility than reduce it.   Given the evidence, it is surprising that a significant source of currently untapped revenue continues to be ignored by so many politicians. Commonly held assumptions that such taxes would be impossible to design and levy, and might create market distortions are not backed up by the latest available evidence.   A financial transactions tax is implementable, both at a European and national level. It would make a useful contribution to public finances and to generating resources for tackling global problems such as climate change and poverty. With increasing political support for such a tax among EU leaders, it is time for policymakers and the financial sector to act.   (Neil McCulloch is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies, UK specialising in the analysis of poverty in developing countries and the linkages between poverty and economic reform).   June 27th, 2011 (Jubilee Campaign)   The past months have seen many countries formally endorse and promote financial transaction taxes. And most importantly José Manuel Barroso, the President of the European Commission, has announced that they will introduce legislation to the European Union for the implement financial transaction taxes. The legislation is expected after the European summer after the Commission tables its feasibility study on the tax in the coming weeks. Barroso has stated that it is appropriate to introduce at the European level, and then followed at the G20.   In June 2011, the French and German Parliaments have voted in favour of introducing legislation for financial transaction taxes at the EU level and the EuroZone.   On 15 June, the Brazilian parliament has adopted a resolution calling for the Brazilian Government to support a financial transaction tax.   At the UN climate negotiating session in Bonn in early June, the Bolivian government call for an international financial transaction tax to cover the costs of the impacts of climate change, protect forests and finance the clean low carbon future for developing countries.   The Belgium Senate voted in favour of a resolution to support a financial transaction tax at the European level in lieu of a global agreement. The funds raised are to go to development and climate change.   The International Catholic development alliance CIDSE has published a review of a financial transaction tax estimating that as much as $635 billion could be raised each year from a 0.05% financial transaction tax.   This is vital funding for climate change, as the UN works towards the creation of a new fund.   “The fight against climate change is one of the global challenges governments continue to fail to stump up the money for. In decades of international climate negotiations money has proven an important stumbling block. Last December in Cancun, governments agreed to create a Green Climate Fund in the United Nations, which is to receive and distribute up to €70 billion (US$ 100 billion) a year from 2020, but nobody knows yet where this money is going to come from. In times of austerity, governments are reluctant about climate action weighing on their national budgets.”   June 2011   Political support grows for Financial Transactions Tax. (ITUC)   Global pressure is growing on international economic decision makers to make the financial markets pay their way in the global economy, as unemployment grows following the Global Financial Crisis and workers across the world reject cutbacks as the next stage of bailing out an increasing broken financial system.   Today, as unions and NGOs hold actions around the world in support of a Financial Transactions Tax, the ITUC called on decision makers in government to conclude on an agreement to implement the tax as soon as possible.   The tax is getting increasing political support, including a unanimous vote for the tax in Brazil’s parliament and a call by European Commission President Manuel Barroso for the EU Summit on 23-24 June to put the issue on its agenda. (On June 23, 2011 the European Commission committed to draw up legislation for a financial transaction tax on all transactions passing through the EU).   Speculative transactions, including financial derivatives, made the banks $605 trillion in 2010 according to the OECD, or around 10 times the worlds GDP. It is largely untaxed.   “It was this speculative money that was one of the major drivers in the financial collapse in 2008, but as an industry it continues to grow, without delivering anything back to the real economies of national governments,” said General Secretary of the ITUC Sharan Burrow. “This industry must start paying its way, instead of just generating huge profits for the worlds’ bankers and financiers,” Ms Burrow added.   “A simple tax on financial transactions would generate billions of dollars that could be used to create decent jobs, tackle global poverty and fund action on climate change. It’s time the banks stopped getting a free ride on the backs of working people and start to pay for repairing the damage they have caused to the economy,” said Ms Burrow.   The unions argue that the initiative, which would involve a tax of a fraction of a percent on transactions, would also dampen financial speculation, which was one of the main drivers of the recession that started in 2008.   “The argument for this tax is compelling and makes sound economic sense – the banks are using their formidable influence over politicians to try and stop the momentum, but governments need to stand up to the strong-arm tactics of the financial sector and govern in the interests of people,” explained Ms Burrow.   Trade unions and civil society organizations worldwide, backed by many economists and politicians, are today focusing public attention around the world on the demand for a financial transactions tax, and the issue will be at the top of the trade union demands for the this year’s G20 Summit in November, hosted by France. French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been a vocal supporter of the tax.   (The ITUC represents 175 million workers in 151 countries and territories and has 305 national affiliates).   March 2010   Economist Jeffrey Sachs says transaction tax would help meet aid promises, ease spending cuts – and curb the power of the banks.   A tax on every deal conducted by the financial industry would curb the excessive power of Wall Street, avoid the need for swingeing cuts in public spending and pay for the unfulfilled promises to poor countries, one of the world"s leading economists says.   Jeffrey Sachs, economics professor at Columbia University in New York, says that the so-called Robin Hood tax was a means of exercising control over bankers and ensuring they paid the right amount of tax.   "Wall Street has had the most profitable year in its history. It made profits of $55bn (£37bn) in the midst of the biggest downturn since the Great Depression," Sachs said, adding that the profits had only been possible because of US taxpayer bailouts and the zero interest-rate policy pursued by the Federal Reserve, the US central bank. "Bankers are quite happy to pocket large amounts of our money."   A tax on all financial transactions needs to be considered by the leaders of the G20 developed and developing nations in the wake of the financial crisis of the past two-and-a-half years.   Sachs says that a Robin Hood tax levied at 0.05% on every transaction would help countries repair the damage to their public finances caused by the recession. "We need the money," he said "The financial sector is under-taxed. It is out of control."   Sachs said later that if Europe ran up against intractable US opposition to a transaction tax it should be willing to go it alone in a "coalition of the willing".   Wall Street had become so "politically powerful that it has written its own ticket for the past 25 years in a way that"s shocking. The results are shocking. The lack of political responsibility is shocking."   The Robin Hood Tax Sachs said. "It would be a low tax harmonised across countries. It is a progressive and non-distortionary tax." He said one use for the extra tax revenue was to meet the promises made at the G8 summit in Gleneagles in 2005 to double aid to Africa to $60bn. "We are $20bn short of that promise."   Sachs said the current economic recession had been caused by an unregulated financial system in which the market in credit default swaps had grown from nothing to $62tn – equivalent to the output of the global economy – over the past decade. "It happened without one regulator asking one single question. It was a shocking dereliction of responsibility." Visit the related web page
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