How do you feel about paying for war through your taxes?

Do you deeply object to being made to participate in killing other people?

Would you rather see your money spent on peace building initiatives?

Who We Are

CPTI is an international peace movement focussed on "Taxes for peace not war," seeking to direct taxes away from preparation for war and towards peace building.

Our mission arises from the deep affront to our con­sciences that people are made to partici­pate in war as combatants, civilian victims and through taxation. We are also moved by the common sense proposition that our taxes should be used to abolish war, not promote it.

The ethical principle of freedom of conscience, a moral imperative governing the behaviour of an individual, is central to the objectives and work of CPTI.

CPTI aims to win recognition of the right to con­scientious objection to paying for armaments, war preparation and war conduct through taxes.

CPTI also upholds the right of conscientious objection to military service and supports all war resisters.

CPTI supports and links the work of the many national and regional war tax resistance and peace tax campaigns. Visit our Global War Tax Resistance page for more information about the many other organisations around the world.

CPTI is constituted as a company (new window) under English law and is a non-governmental organisation (NGO) in special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) (new window) of the United Nations.

What We Are Doing

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United Nations Building, New York City
United Nations, New York City

We focus much of our activity on the UN, sub­mitting doc­uments to the United Nations Commit­tee on Human Rights (UNCHR) often relat­ing to specific countries and report­ing on their treat­ment of con­sci­entious objec­tors. Visit our CPTI State­ments to the United Nations page to find out more and read our submissions.

We are a central point of reference for WTR and PTC around the world and one of the means by which national campaigns communicate with one another and coordinate international action. Visit our National War Tax Resistance and Peace Tax Campaigns page to find an organisation near you.

CPTI was founded in 1994 at the biennial Inter­national Conference on War Tax Resistance and Peace Tax Cam­paigns and has become the over­seeing body for the conference. The Inter­national Conference is hosted and organised by a different national organisation each time. The last Inter­national Conference was held in Man­chester, England, in 2008.

How You Can Help

CPTI needs supporters, because the more of us there are, the more we can impress officials in the UN and national governments with our constitu­ency.

  • Join CPTI.
    If you are prepared to put some time into the organi­sation you can become a mem­ber. You would be expected to attend the meetings of the General Assembly, usually every two years, or send your proxy. You would share actively in our work and become involved in the General Assembly's decision-making process. Learn more.
  • Join Your National Organisation.
    Find your national organisation on our National War Tax Resistance and Peace Tax Campaigns page. If you know about a national organisation that is not listed on that page, please tell us about it.
  • Give Practical Support to CPTI.
    If you cannot make a full com­mitment to membership, you may have particular skills which CPTI needs and would value. For instance: interpre­tation, transla­tion, publicity, assisting UN repre­sentatives. More sugges­tions.
  • Fund CPTI's Work.
    CPTI also needs funds to enable its Board to meet face to face twice a year, also for its repre­sentatives in Geneva and New York to participate and make sub­missions to the UNCHR and for the Legal Committee to meet and carry out its research. Please help us by donating on-line or by other means offered.

News and Updates

The Seventeenth International Conference of War Tax Resisters and Peace Tax Campaigns

was held between 4th and 6th October, 2024, near Lübeck, Germany.

2.

On the Friday evening the fifteen people present - from Germany, the UK and Switzerland were joined for national reports by online participants from the USA and Nepal. Read on...

 

3.

The major feature of Saturday’s programme was the keynote address given by Ralf Becker of the “Rethinking Security” initiative (read PDF here). Read on…

 

4.

On Sunday, following the CPTI General Assembly,  most of us proceeded to a historic tour of the Hanseatic city of Lübeck itself, followed on Monday by an “alternative” tour of the radical heritage of what was long a bastion against the rise of Nazism. Read on…

5.

The conference itself had taken place on the Priwall peninsula, which for forty years had been cut off from the rest of the mainland by northern end of the Iron Curtain, less than a kilometer from where we met. Read on…

6.

Today, there is just a tourist information board. Not a scrap of rusting barbed wire survives of the once-impenetrable fortifications. Read on...

7.

In this post-Covid world, the big gatherings seem to be a thing of the past, but those present at Lübeck were inspired to reaffirm the importance of maintaining CPTI with its unique role, and our hard-won UN accreditation. Read on...

 

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So now we are working towards another in-person gathering in two years’ time, with perhaps an in-between on-line mini-conference.

CPTI Documents Submitted to the UN Since 2020

Complete listing: Links to the actual documents are on the CPTI Statements to the United Nations page.

Recent additions: 

Submission for Report of Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression in time of Conflict, July 2022

UPR Submissions on Republic of Korea, Switzerland, July 2022

Submissions for 135th Session of Human Rights Committee, July 2022: Georgia, Ireland, Luxembourg, Russian Federation (consideration postponed until 136th Session), Uruguay and for List of Issues  Colombia, State of Palestine, Uganda,

Oral Statements to the 50th Session of the Human Rights Council, June 2022:  Item 2, Annual Report of the High Commissioner for Human Rights; Item 4, Report of Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Belarus; Item 6 (jointly with Center for Global Non-Killing) UPR Adoption - Lithuania.  Item 10, Support for human Rights in Ukraine (not delivered because of time limit on debate)

Submissions for 90th Session of the Committee on the Rigts of the Child, May 2022: Canada, Cuba.

UPR Submission on Finland, March 2022.

Submissions for 134th Session of the Human Rights Committee, March 2022: Bolivia, Cambodia, Iraq, Israel, Qatar and for List of Issues: Brazil, Egypt, Turkmenistan.

Submission for the Report of the High Commissioner for Human Rights on Conscientious Objection to Military Service, February 2022