A/HRC/28/60 52. The third meeting of the Arab Forum on Asset Recovery, hosted by the Government of Switzerland, in association with StAR, was held in Geneva from 1 to 3 November 2014, bringing together 250 specialists from 40 countries.41 In parallel, a side event focused on the role of civil society organizations in the asset recovery process and stressed the need to create mechanisms for information sharing between civil society and governments, and the need to establish accountable and transparent mechanisms to manage and dispose of returned assets, through broad consultation with concerned stakeholders.42 53. On 29 and 30 April 2014, StAR provided technical support to the Ukraine Forum on Asset Recovery following asset freezes in relation to the former Ukrainian President, Viktor Yanukovych, and his associates by Austria, Canada, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, the United States of America and the European Union. In that context a guide for civil society organizations illustrating how they can contribute to asset recovery efforts was published.43 54. In response to public outcry over tax evasion and corporate tax avoidance, the G8 countries made a commitment at the Lough Erne Summit in June 2013 to introduce automatic exchange of information by tax authorities across the world in order to fight the scourge of tax evasion; to change rules that let companies shift their profits across borders to avoid taxes; to assist developing countries with information and capacity to collect taxes owed to them; to introduce public country-by-country reporting for extractive companies; and to address the issue of misuse of shell companies to facilitate illicit financial flows.44 OECD was tasked by the G8 and G20 Finance Ministers with developing an Action Plan on Base Erosion and Profit Shifting , published in July 2013, containing 15 specific actions to address a range of issues relating to tax transparency, accountability and information exchange. The G20 declaration in St. Petersburg in September 2013 underlined that “developing countries should be able to reap the benefits of a more transparent international tax system”. 55. During the annual meeting of the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes in Berlin in October 2014, 51 jurisdictions announced the introduction of a new single global standard on Automatic Exchange of Information on Taxation Matters by 2017 or the end of 2018. Leaders at the G20 summit in Brisbane, Australia, in November 2014 affirmed the principle that “profits should be taxed where economic activities deriving the profits are performed and where value is created”. G20 leaders also welcomed progress on taxing patent boxes, a practice whereby intellectual property royalties can divert profits from the countries where they are made.45 56. Concerns have, however, been expressed that developing countries have been excluded from the design phase of the new system for automatic exchange of tax information or may not yet be in a position to provide reciprocal information and may thus gain little from it, which would deprive many low and middle income countries of the benefits of international tax information exchange. One suggestion is for a window of, say, 41 42 43 44 45 18 See final communiqué, available from http://star.worldbank.org/star/sites/star/files/co_chairs_english.pdf. Recommendations from civil society are available from www.transparency.org/files/content/ pressrelease/Final_civil_society_recommendations_from_AFAR_III_Geneva.pdf. For more details see http://star.worldbank.org/star/UFAR/stolen-asset-recovery-ukraine-0. The guide is available from http://star.worldbank.org/star/ufar/ukraine-resources. See G8 Lough Erne Declaration; 2013 Lough Erne G8 Leaders’ Communiqué; Common principles on misuse of companies and legal arrangements and the G8 action plan principles to prevent the misuse of companies and legal arrangements, available from https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/g8-communique-and-documents. See www.theguardian.com/business/2014/nov/16/g20-tax-avoidance-pledge-still-leaves-poorcountries-vulnerable.