Chairs
• José Manuel Castro Arango
• Christian Günther
• Roberto Ramos Obando

SPEAKERS

Lucy	Cruz De Quiñones
Michele	Zezza
Rodrigo	UPRIMNY YEPES
Valeria	Cárdenas Berdejo

The effective protection of social rights in contemporary constitutional democracies depends not only on their formal recognition in constitutional texts, but also on the existence of schemes funded by taxation and contributions capable of underpinning health, education, social security, and other welfare provisions over time. Courts, legislators, and administrative authorities increasingly confront tensions regarding how to effectively implement social rights whilst operating within budgetary, fiscal, and macroeconomic constraints. At the same time, to address these problems, there are persistent calls to reform the international tax system, as evident in global debates on tax justice, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and the emerging United Nations framework for international tax cooperation.

This workshop seeks to bring together scholars working on social rights and taxation, broadly conceived, to examine how constitutions organise the relationship between taxation, the SDGs, and the Welfare State. It seeks to connect two debates that too often run in parallel and to examine their reciprocal effects. On the one hand, there is a doctrinal and jurisprudential discussion on constitutional guarantees of social rights and the limits of fiscal scarcity as a justification for non-compliance. On the other hand, there is a search for a new paradigm of ‘sustainable taxation’, more inclusive global tax governance, and corporate responsibility (including Environmental, Social, and Governance [ESG] frameworks) as tools for financing social and economic rights. This often creates tension with long-standing constitutional principles of tax law, sovereignty, and democracy.

In light of these concerns, the workshop aims to explore, inter alia:

Comparative constitutional approaches to tax- and contribution-funded welfare schemes, and how fiscal and budgetary constraints may be shaped by the current international tax regime and the new trends of global tax governance (including SDG-related commitments and minimum-tax agendas such as OECD Pillar Two), affecting the design and sustainability of those schemes.

Constitutional and human rights limits on the exercise of taxing powers and on the use of ‘fiscal scarcity’ as a justification for restricting social rights. This may include examples where such scarcity is produced or reinforced by international tax competition and national tax incentives.

The evolving role of the United Nations, the OECD, and other international fora in reshaping international tax governance, and its implications for the ‘bloc of constitutionality’, the protection of taxpayers’ and beneficiaries’ rights, and the fiscal space of peripheral and Global South economies to finance social rights.

Theoretical and normative frameworks for an integrated social and tax constitutionalism, including procedural links between these areas of law, the repurposing of tax law as a tool for the implementation and expansion of social rights,