Similarly, low-tax demands from the financial sector and lack of regulation have been considered indicative of a state’s unwillingness (rather than inability) to use its maximum available resources.328 On a related issue, several special procedures have proposed a financial transaction tax as a way of curbing speculation and reducing financial market volatility.329 Despite these developments, special procedures and treaty bodies have not yet consistently addressed financial sector reform as a method of resource mobilisation, nor the negative impact of the global failure to enforce adequate regulation on the financial sector. While it is recognised that the UN Guiding Principles for business and human rights also apply to the financial sector, very little has been done to connect international financial regulation, sustainable development and human rights. 5.4 Concluding observations In recent years, special procedures and treaty bodies have addressed the obligation to mobilise resources in regard to: • the impact of austerity measures implemented by states after the 2007 to 2008 global economic and financial crisis; • the impact that some policy measures, in particular taxation measures, have in other states; and • the impact that lack of regulation to the financial sector might have in the capacity of states to mobilise resources for the realisation of human rights. While the development of human rights standards in relation to the aforementioned three issues is worth stressing, special procedures and treaty bodies should more consistently and systematically address issues of resource mobilisation in their work. There is still an important vacuum in the legal standards that human rights monitoring bodies need to address to better assess states’ claims of lack of resources. In this regard, academics have already further developed and deepened the conceptual frameworks related to, for example, fiscal and monetary policies; human rights bodies should take these into account.330 328 ‘Report of the Special Rapporteur on poverty, Magdalena Sepúlveda Carmona’ (2014) UN Doc A/HRC/26/28. 329 See, eg, ‘Report of the Independent Expert on international order, Alfred de Zayas’ (2016) A/71/286; ‘Report of the Independent Expert on poverty, Magdalena Sepúlveda Carmona’ (2011) A/HRC/17/34; Concluding Observations Iceland E/C.12/ISL/CO/4 (2012). In addition, in 2012, in a joint statement, the mandate-holders on extreme poverty, food, business, foreign debt and international solidarity proposed imposing a global financial transaction tax aimed at offsetting the costs of the economic, financial, fuel, climate and food crises, and to protect basic human rights. 330 See, eg, Aoife Nolan, Rory O’Connell and Colin Harvey (eds), Human Rights and Public Finance: Budgets and the Promotion of Economic and Social Rights (Hart Publishing 2013). 82 The Obligation to Mobilise Resources: Bridging Human Rights, Sustainable Development Goals, and Economic and Fiscal Policies   December 2017