interdisciplinary approach needed to address complex issues (the organisations that submitted the information were highly diverse and included human rights and tax-justice organisations, as well as an academic institution). In regard to transnational corporations’ abusive tax practices, treaty bodies and special procedures have noted that states should encourage business actors whose conduct they are in a position to influence to ensure that they do not undermine efforts of the states in which they operate to fully realise economic, social and cultural rights, for example, by resorting to tax evasion and tax avoidance strategies in those countries.318 To combat transnational corporations’ abusive transfer-pricing practices (see section 4.4 above), the CESCR has recommended that states ‘explore the possibility to tax multinational groups of companies as single firms, with developed countries imposing a minimum corporate income tax rate during a period of transition’.319 Moreover, human rights monitoring bodies’ efforts make evident that, when acting as a member of an international organisation, a state remains responsible for its own conduct in relation to its human rights obligations, within and outside its territory.320 The CESCR has noted, for example, that ‘State Parties have an obligation to ensure that their actions as members of international organisations take due account of the right to health’.321 In regard to resource mobilisation, this implies, for example, that, when states influence decisions on lending policies and credit agreements as members of an international financial institution (eg, the IMF, the World Bank and regional development banks), they should avoid jeopardising the economic, social and cultural rights of the population in the country concerned, as well as avoid undermining that state’s ability to use maximum available resources to realise economic, social and cultural rights.322 While it is commendable that, on occasion, human rights monitoring bodies have addressed the negative impact that tax-related policies adopted by developed countries have in other countries, there are still various policies adopted or supported by developed states that have an impact in the mobilisation of resources of other countries that have yet to be consistently addressed, including conditionalities attached to official development assistance (eg, trade liberalisation). 318 See, eg, CESCR General Comment No 24, para 37. 319 CESCR General Comment No 24, para 37. 320 Final draft of ‘Guiding principles on extreme poverty and human rights submitted by the Special Rapporteur on poverty, Magdalena Sepulveda Carmona’, UN Doc A/HRC/21/39, para 97. 321 CESCR General Comment No 14, para 39. 322 It is interesting to note that the language the CESCR uses in its General Comments to qualify the nature of these obligations is not always consistent. Sometimes it is considered mandatory (‘have an obligation’ – CESCR General Comment No 17, para 56) and in other General Comments it is recommendatory (‘should’ – General Comment No 15, para 58). 80 The Obligation to Mobilise Resources: Bridging Human Rights, Sustainable Development Goals, and Economic and Fiscal Policies   December 2017