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The collective journey towards IACHR Resolution 2/26 on fiscal justice in the Americas

By Juan Auz, Fiscal Justice Lead, CESR

For years, a simple premise has guided the work of the Center for Economic and Social Rights (CESR) and the organizations that make up the Initiative for Human Rights Principles in Fiscal Policy: there are no rights without resources, and the way a State raises revenue, budgets and spends is subject to its human rights obligations, not merely a technical matter reserved for a narrow circle of specialists. On the basis of that premise, together with a broad community of civil society organizations from Latin America and the Caribbean, we have worked to bring the language of rights (equality, progressivity, maximum available resources, transparency and participation) into national and regional debates that for decades were conducted exclusively in macroeconomic terms.

That accumulated effort has now reached a turning point. On 28 April 2026, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), with the support of its Special Rapporteur on Economic, Social, Cultural and Environmental Rights (REDESCA), adopted Resolution No. 2/26 on fiscal policies and human rights in the Americas. With it, language built collectively through participation and legal rigor has been crystallized and elevated to the status of an inter-American human rights standard. What we previously argued for as a well-founded aspiration now has the institutional backing of the region’s principal human rights body.

It is worth emphasizing how we arrived here. The resolution is the product of a consultation process that included high-level dialogues, a regional public hearing, questionnaires and workshops with experts, academia, States and civil society. The IACHR and REDESCA opened their doors to those of us working on these issues in the region, took our contributions seriously and processed them with rigor and respect. The result is a document that captures collective knowledge. That way of proceeding—deliberative, participatory, transparent, accountable and attentive to voices from the Global South—is in itself good news for the legitimacy of the standard we now have.

Convergence between the Principles and the Resolution

The alignment between Resolution 2/26 and the Initiative’s 15 Principles is striking, as both are grounded in a shared conceptual architecture.

The resolution opens its operative section by affirming that the design, adoption and evaluation of fiscal policies must be compatible with international human rights obligations and oriented towards guaranteeing those rights (IACHR, Res. 2/26, sections 1.1 and 1.2). It shares significant conceptual ground with the Initiative’s first Principle: the realization of human rights as a fundamental purpose of fiscal policy.

Equality and non-discrimination run throughout the document. The resolution calls for reviewing and correcting fiscal structures that reproduce inequalities, incorporating differentiated, intersectional and intercultural approaches, and specifically addressing the structural racial inequality affecting Indigenous Peoples and people of African descent (IACHR, Res. 2/26, sections 1.4, 1.5 and 3.5). This resonates with Principles 5 and 6 on eliminating structural discrimination and achieving substantive gender equality from an intersectional perspective. The inclusion of a section on the care economy and the financing of comprehensive care systems confirms this convergence (IACHR, Res. 2/26, sections 2.5 and 3.8).

The pillars of progressivity and non-retrogression, mobilization of the maximum available resources, and enhanced protection of minimum essential levels (Principles 9, 10 and 11) appear as structuring axes (IACHR, Res. 2/26, sections 1.6, 1.8 and 1.10). The resolution subjects retrogressive measures to strict requirements of exceptionality, temporariness, necessity and proportionality (IACHR, Res. 2/26, section 1.7); calls for expanding fiscal space through progressive direct taxation, reviewing unjustified tax benefits, and combating tax evasion, tax avoidance and illicit financial flows (IACHR, Res. 2/26, sections 1.9 and 2.8); and protects essential spending from austerity (IACHR, Res. 2/26, sections 3.6 and 3.7).

The triad of transparency, participation and accountability (Principle 7) runs through the resolution from beginning to end, together with access to fiscal information and access to justice to challenge harmful fiscal decisions (IACHR, Res. 2/26, sections 1.11, 1.12 and 1.13). The regulatory function of taxation (Principle 12) is recognized as a means of promoting health, healthy diets and the response to the climate emergency (IACHR, Res. 2/26, sections 2.6 and 6.2). International cooperation (Principle 13) also has a distinct place, with references to tax cooperation, automatic exchange of information and the duty of States not to adopt measures that have adverse effects on the development of others (IACHR, Res. 2/26, sections 2.9 and 9.1). Even environmental sustainability (Principle 4) is anchored in a section devoted to the climate emergency (IACHR, Res. 2/26, section 6, sections 6.1 to 6.6), in dialogue with Advisory Opinion OC-32/25 of the Inter-American Court.

Pointers to continue forward

Recognizing this convergence does not mean overlooking the nuances. There are dimensions of the Principles that the resolution addresses in less depth, and they are worth keeping in mind for the work ahead.

The first concerns reparations. The Initiative devotes an entire section to preventing and remedying human rights violations linked to fiscal policy (Principle 15). The resolution incorporates access to justice and the possibility of obtaining adequate reparations (IACHR, Res. 2/26, section 1.13), but it does not develop, with the same depth, a reparations framework for the harm that retrogressive or discriminatory fiscal decisions cause to people. This is a path still to be opened.

The second concerns extraterritorial obligations and the responsibility of supranational actors. The Principles devote specific attention to the responsibilities of international financial institutions and to States’ obligations beyond their borders. The resolution mentions international financial institutions and harmful tax competition, and reaffirms corporate responsibility in relation to tax conduct (IACHR, Res. 2/26, sections 4.4 and 9.1; section 7), but the extraterritorial dimension appears in a more limited way than in the Initiative’s document.

The third concerns framing. The resolution repeatedly emphasizes States’ sovereign policy space and stresses that it does not seek to prescribe an economic or tax model (IACHR, Res. 2/26, preambular section). That caution is understandable in a regional body seeking consensus, but it contrasts with the more assertive tone of the Principles, which unequivocally call for socially just and redistributive fiscal policy capable of repairing historical legacies of exclusion. The language of colonialism and structural causes, present in the Initiative, is translated in the resolution into more institutional categories.

None of these observations diminishes the value of the document. Rather, they map out the conversations that come next.

Embarking on a newly-opened path

A standard transforms realities only if it is used. Resolution 2/26 is a tool, and there are at least three fronts on which its potential can be deployed.

The global level. The resolution comes at a decisive moment for international fiscal governance. Negotiations on the United Nations Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation are advancing towards a final text and two initial protocols (on taxation of cross-border services and on prevention and resolution of disputes), with sessions continuing through 2027 and the next round in August 2026 in New York, followed by another in late November in Nairobi. The Inter-American standard can inform the work of organizations such as CESR, which have followed and contributed to discussions around the negotiations. For example, the debate over the article devoted to human rights and sustainable development—where the question is whether these will be operational principles or merely high-level guidance—benefits from the regional weight of a resolution that places human rights at the center. Discussions on harmful tax practices and information exchange echo the resolution’s standards on tax evasion, abusive tax avoidance and illicit financial flows. And provisions on capacity-building and technical assistance connect with its principle of cooperation. Bringing this language to the United Nations is a concrete and urgent task.

The national level. For civil society organizations, the resolution provides legally significant backing for advocacy and lobbying, since the IACHR is a body whose interpretation of Inter-American human rights instruments carries considerable weight across the region. This makes it possible to argue before finance ministries, parliaments and national human rights institutions that a regressive tax reform, a spending cut that compromises minimum essential levels, or a lack of budget transparency are not simply policy choices, but possible failures to comply with Inter-American obligations that may result in human rights violations. It can support strategic litigation, rights-based budget analysis, gender-responsive budgeting and demands to protect social spending from austerity. What was previously advanced as technical argument can now be presented as a legal requirement.

Looking ahead. The resolution is an instrument of the Commission. The natural next horizon is for its standards to be taken up and consolidated by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights through an advisory opinion on fiscal policy and human rights. Following the recent opinions on the climate emergency (OC-32/25) and the right to care (OC-31/25), an intervention by the Court would give these standards the highest interpretive authority at the regional level. It is a path worth embarking upon.

Resolution 2/26 therefore opens an important avenue in the long journey towards fiscal justice and human rights. It drew on a plurality ideas reflecting the reality of a region afflicted by inequality, and on concepts that contribute to justice-based solutions. These ideas and concepts are now a standard that it is up to us to use.