The August 2024 vote on the terms of reference had passed with the support of all but 8 blocker countries: the UK and US, plus Australia, Canada, Israel, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea. The recently published State of Tax Justice 2024 showed that these countries, with just 8 per cent of the world’s population, are responsible for some 43 per cent of the global revenue losses caused by cross-border tax abuse.

In the final vote, just one country joined the blockers: Argentina, which had already delivered its now traditional speech to disassociate the country from any language referencing globally agreed measures such as Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals. The EU as a bloc abstained, after calling and losing two amendments that would have required agreement on strong consensus. This was also the issue on which the US called the main vote, rather than allowing the resolution to pass by unanimous consensus.