The human rights movement is by no means uniform and a series of challenges, both within the movement and in respect of its role as a political actor, have become more pronounced with the increasing power of human rights and its advocates. This development has cast the light on human rights advocates, such as NGOs, and has raised questions both of legitimacy – who are you to make claims in the name of human rights or on behalf of certain people? Are you living up to human rights principles in your own practice? – and effectiveness – are you really making the positive difference in people’s lives you claim to make? Responses to these challenges testify to a growing self-awareness and critical assessment of the nature of human rights work, which includes an evaluation of the efficacy of strategies used to promote and protect human rights. Inevitably, human rights advocates are increasingly drawn into the political domain and are faced with the difficult task of marrying principle with pragmatism. This chapter explores the tensions arising in these contexts and assesses the strategies used by human rights actors, namely documentation, human rights reporting, advocacy, awareness-raising, training and education and, where relevant, litigation

International taxation is a broad concept that covers the taxation of transactions with jurisdictional links to more than one country. These transactions, sometimes referred to as ‘cross-border transactions’, pose particular challenges and problems for taxpayers and taxation authorities. For instance, there is the obvious potential for double taxation to arise (ie the same income being taxed in more than one jurisdiction). The potential also exists for income to be diverted and sheltered in low-tax jurisdictions (ie tax havens), which raises concerns about tax evasion and tax avoidance. It is important to realise that as taxation is a sovereign right, there is no general overarching body of international law that deals with the taxation of cross-border transactions. In other words, there is no ‘supernational’ taxation law. Instead, each country must develop its own set of rules to deal with cross-border transactions and any jurisdictional conflicts that may arise. In order to protect their revenue bases, it is natural for countries to want to adopt broad-based international taxation rules to ensure that they collect as much tax as possible.

The chapter sets off by examining the theoretical bases upon which a non-state actor (NSA) may be deemed to possess human rights obligations and critiques the various approaches put forward by states and the scholarly community. It then goes on to examine a variety of NSAs along with their own distinct position as regards their human rights role. Some NSAs, such as international financial institutions (IFIs), take a legalistic approach to the matter and are generally wary of accepting even the more fundamental obligations, whereas other actors are keen to achieve a broader human rights agenda and are thus willing to accept some human rights commitments. Besides intergovernmental organisations we also focus on multinational corporations (MNCs) and the way in which their operations have a significant impact on the rights of populations worldwide. It shall be demonstrated that, while their human rights ‘obligations’, if any, have largely arisen as a result of voluntary undertakings, they are now entering a hybrid phase of limited regulation, or at least of an attempt at regulation. Finally, we shed some light on national liberation movements and rebel groups and their distinct responsibilities under international humanitarian law (IHL).

This chapter explores the concept of vulnerability, its recognition and use in international human rights law, and the broader debate on the (potential) advantages and downsides of focusing on vulnerable identities to strengthen protection. Following this overview, it examines core categories of vulnerability that are either already reflected in international human rights law, largely in the form of anti-discrimination instruments, or constitute a priority area in recent debates and legal developments. This includes ‘race’, gender and sexual orientation, persons with disabilities, persons living in extreme poverty, age (the rights of children are addressed in a discreet chapter), as well as refugees, migrants and internally displaced persons (IDPs). For each of these categories, the chapter examines core notions, highlights specific concerns, charts relevant legal developments and analyses both advancements made and remaining challenges.

The Australian income tax system is considered to be among the most complex tax systems in the world. In order to properly understand how the income tax system works, it is necessary to adopt a structured approach that starts with the most basic elements of the regime. At the centre of every tax system are the statutes that govern their operation and contain the rules for calculating tax liability. This chapter introduces Australia’s income tax legislation and focuses on how a taxpayer’s income tax liability is calculated. It discusses the concept of taxable income and how income tax interacts with GST and FBT. The chapter outlines a number of speical concepts related to calculating a taxpayer’s tax liability as well as the special rules that apply to SBEs. It also examines the rates of income tax payable by different entities and focuses on the marginal tax rates and additional levies that apply to individuals (eg Medicare levy and Medicare levy surcharge). It also discusses tax offsets, the Higher Education Loans Program (‘HELP’) and the basic assessment, payment and collection rules. The chapter concludes with a detailed example showing the steps involved in calculating a taxpayer’s income tax liability.

Chapter 11 analyzes the main complexities underlying educational production, what these complexities imply for modeling the role of schooling in the overall knowledge production process, and the simplifying assumptions made to estimate the contribution of various inputs to school outputs. The complexities reviewed are, first, that in educational production, knowledge is produced jointly – in formal education settings such as schools and also in other settings, principally the family. What implications does this have for education as a social equalizer? The second complexity is that knowledge production requires not only factors of production using “technology” (such as a standard curriculum and teaching techniques) to transmit knowledge, but also the participation of those acquiring the knowledge – the students. The third is that the decision-making process over resource allocation even in the formal public education process in schools takes place at various “levels” of administration – state, district, schools, and classroom, making model specification difficult. The chapter also presents a typical optimization school-level decision-making analysis using two factors subject to budget constraints.

Chapter 20 reviews the various forms of state/public sector originated input-based and student outcome-based accountability systems, from inspector systems to raising standards to publishing school (or country) average test scores to invoking sanctions for schools that do not meet standards for student learning gains, as well as combinations of these various forms of quality control. After a brief review of input-based public “regulation” of education systems, the chapter discusses in detail student test-based accountability systems, including some specific early examples in US states of such systems and the evolution of US national accountability legislation from the 1990s until the Obama administration. The chapter also reviews the growing empirical evidence that such output-based systems significantly improve aggregate student performance. In addition, it critically analyzes the effort by international agencies, such as the OECD PISA program to use international testing to “shame” national educational policymakers into implementing educational reforms.

Chapter 6 introduces the concept of present value and of rate of return analysis as the major tools used by economists to measure returns to investment in human capital. To do this, the discussion introduces the costs of an educational investment and what these consist of, and brings these costs into an analysis of estimating the rate of return to education using two different methods – the “calculated rate” and the “Mincer rate,” including critiques of the Mincer rate. The chapter introduces the concept of social costs and social return, the “option value” of schooling, and further analyzes the problem of “selection bias” – how economists try to “identify” the present value or rate of return to the additional skills learned in school, distinguishing the returns to investing in these skills from other factors that influence the higher wages/earnings of those with more schooling. To illustrate this identification problem, a case study is presented of estimating the returns to education for identical twins with different attainment levels.

It is common for income tax systems around the world to contain a broad range of exemptions. From a policy perspective, there are many reasons why governments provide exemptions. The most obvious is to grant concessional treatment to certain ‘deserving’ entities. Tax exemptions may be total or partial and are usually provided because the relevant entities serve some social, community or philanthropic purpose that the government wishes to support. By providing particular entities with tax exemptions, the government delivers support to them indirectly (ie via tax expenditures) rather than directly (ie via grants or subsidies). Clearly, providing tax exemptions comes at a cost, since governments do not collect revenue from the benefiting entities. However, this needs to be balanced against the fact that many of these entities provide important services to the community, which governments might otherwise feel they would have to provide themselves. By supporting such entities under their tax systems, governments can relieve themselves (either wholly or partly) from having to directly provide certain services that may, in any case, be best delivered through the private sector.

Complaints procedures offer a unique opportunity for individuals and groups to have claims of human rights violations considered and their rights vindicated in a judicial or quasi-judicial procedure. On the one hand, for non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and human rights lawyers, complaints procedures are an important avenue to pursue strategic objectives, in addition to supporting victims in individual cases. States, on the other hand, may find themselves having to defend allegations of specific or systemic violations. Ideally, complaints procedures act as a mirror that provides an opportunity for states to bring their practices into conformity with the respective treaty. In practice, however, states often view unfavourable decisions as unwarranted criticism, which may create difficulties at the implementation stage. The treaty bodies themselves are in theory neutral arbiters that apply the treaty provisions and rules of procedures. However, inevitably, their position as bodies created by states, and relying on states’ cooperation on the one hand and seeking the effective protection of human rights on the other, raises a host of challenges in actual practice.

To promote compliance with the tax laws and discourage tax avoidance and tax evasion, the Australian tax system is supported by various administrative and criminal penalty regimes. These regimes contain important sanctions and integrity measures that underpin the operation of the whole tax system. This chapter focuses on the following regimes: the administrative penalty regime contained in pt 4-25 of sch 1 TAA, the tax offences regime contained in div 2 of pt III TAA, and the promoter penalty regime contained in div 290 of sch 1 TAA. Penalties imposed under these regimes vary considerably depending on the nature of the offence. Where financial penalties are imposed, they are usually set by reference to penalty units. A penalty unit is $313 from 1 July 2023 and is subject to indexation every three years (s 4AA Crimes Act 1914 (Cth)). A general administrative penalty regime is located in pt 4-25 of sch 1 TAA. This regime contains standardised administrative penalties that the Commissioner can impose for breaches of the tax laws, including the income tax, GST and FBT laws.

Part 3 (Chapters 7 and 8) reviews theories of labor markets and the relationship between education and earnings that disagree with at least some of the underlying premises of human capital theory. These theories introduce alternative conceptions of education’s role in worker productivity and earnings. Chapter 7 reviews theories that challenge the human capital assumption that there is a direct, causal link between the skills acquired in education and the productivity/wages of workers in jobs as determined through wage competition. This includes the major contributions of signaling theory, queuing theory, and internal labor market theory to understanding labor markets. All three of these alternatives to human capital theory share the assumption that the skills that individuals acquire through investing in education are not the principal reason that they are more or less productive and therefore earn higher or lower wages in the labor market, as claimed by human capital theory.

This chapter examines FBT, which is a separate Commonwealth tax payable by employers on fringe benefits provided to their employees. Fringe benefits cover most kinds of non-salary benefits provided in respect of employment (eg the use of a car, free housing and discounted goods or services). Australia is one of only two OECD countries (the other is New Zealand) that tax employers on the provision of fringe benefits. Most other countries simply assess employees on the value of the fringe benefits that they receive under their general income tax systems. Before the introduction of FBT in 1986, Australia also used to assess employees on fringe benefits under former s 26(e) ITAA36. FBT was introduced because employees had a poor record of complying with s 26(e) and because the provision suffered from various valuation and other technical problems. This meant that, in practice, the income tax system did not adequately capture all types of fringe benefits. FBT was also introduced because it is more efficient to administer since there are far fewer taxpayers to deal with.