OECD Arbitration in Tax Treaty Law

1. S. 495Introduction

The last few decades have seen an unprecedented growth of importance of human rights. Their development gave rise to many questions related to the due observance of taxpayers’ rights. This increasing concern is aligned with the proposal of a model of an ‘European Taxpayers’ Code’ by the European Commission that provides for principles and best practices aimed at safeguarding taxpayers’ rights. It seems quite evident that all of the pressure that led to its proposal is a clear symptom of the increasing need to objectively determine the minimum standards of taxpayers’ rights.

The same need is observed in the context of cross-border transactions, especially in relation to mutual agreement procedures provided by the existing Double Taxation Conventions (DTC) regarding the exchange of information, collection of taxes, and avoiding double taxation in violation of the provisions of the convention. This chapter will focus on taxpayers’ rights in international arbitration which is conceived as a part – a second phase – of the mutual agreement procedure (MAP) that is initiated with the aim to eliminate double taxation in violation of the DTC provisions.

In this context, all lega...