Allison D. Christians, " Tax Treaties for Investment and Aid to Sub-Saharan Africa: A Case Study," 71 Brooklyn Law Review 639-700 (2005).
Abstract: The investment and aid goals of tax treaties are undermined by competing tax regimes,
including domestic U.S. rules that provide relief of current U.S. tax burdens on foreign income
earned by multinational companies. To the extent multinationals can escape U.S. taxation simply
by investing abroad, the U.S. fosters tax competition throughout the world as foreign countries
compete to attract the U.S. capital fleeing taxation at home. As a result of this international tax
competition and a corresponding divergence in tax mix between developed and less developed
countries, much of the tax ostensibly relieved under tax treaties no longer exists to a significant
extent with respect to investment in many LDCs. As a result, traditional tax treaties with these
countries may offer few commercial benefits to investors.
Allison Christians, "Taxing the Global Worker: Three Spheres of International Social Security Coordination," 26 Virginia Tax Review 81-123 (2006).
Abstract: Income security programs form a part of the social and legal fabric of a majority of countries around the world, including all of the countries with which the United States has strong economic and commercial ties. Most workers can obtain some relief from multiple layers of income taxation, as well as a fair amount of certainty regarding their income tax treatment, either through statutory measures provided on a unilateral basis by individual countries or through an income tax treaty. This article examines how these two procedurally and substantively distinct methods of social security program coordination create a framework that is logical in some respects but that necessarily introduces overlaps, gaps, and administrative complexities, and suggests some ways to achieve a more cohesive approach to coordinating the taxes imposed on global workers.
Antonio Hugo Figueroa, "International Double Taxation: General Reflections on Jurisdictional Principles, Model Tax Conventions and Argentina's Experience," 59 Bulletin for International Fiscal Documentation 379-386 (August/September 2005)
Abstract: The source principle ought to prevail over the worldwide income principle because it reduces the risk of undertaxation. In any event, tax treaties should not follow the OECD Model, which was drafted when international double taxation was common and not properly dealt with by domestic legislation. It unfairly causes resources to be shifted from poor countries to rich countries and facilitates international tax avoidance and evasion.
Deborah L. Swenson, "Why Do Developing Countries Sign BITs?," 12 U.C. Davis Journal International Law & Policy 131-155 (2005).
Abstract: A remarkable expansion in the number of signings of bilateral investment treaties (BITs) marked the 1990s. This expansion in the number of treaty obligations presents a puzzle, since a number of studies have come to question whether the receipt of new foreign investment flows rewarded signatory countries. I find two factors that are likely to influence the observed benefits of country decisions to enter into BITs. First, countries that had already received larger stocks of foreign investment were more likely to sign BITs than were countries that had been less successful in attracting foreign investment. Second, when controlled for timing, data from the late 1990s suggests that BIT signing did help developing countries attract a larger volume of foreign investment.
