The report draws on research done by UN bodies and civil society, including the Don’t Buy Into Occupation coalition and PAX. It calls on companies to promptly cease all business activities and terminate relationships that are linked to human rights violations or international crimes against the Palestinian people and for companies that refuse to do so to be held accountable.
The report represents a watershed moment in the push for corporate accountability for international crimes committed by Israel in the occupied Palestinian territory. Albanese leaves no room for doubt that corporate engagement with any component of Israel’s illegal occupation is connected with international crimes and that companies or their executives may be held legally accountable for contributing to these crimes. She specifically goes into the involvement of corporations from various sectors: arms manufacturers, tech firms, construction companies, extractive and service industries, financial institutions, as well as academic institutions and charities.
Had proper human rights due diligence been undertaken, corporate entities would have long ago disengaged from Israeli occupation.
UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese
The Don’t Buy Into Occupation coalition, of which PAX is an active member, has been researching and exposing European financial institutions’ links to companies involved with the illegal Israeli settlement enterprise since 2021. Last year, PAX published a report on European financial institutions’ investments in arms companies supplying to Israel. In her current report, Albanese terms financial institutions that channel funding to the Israeli government or to corporate actors that contribute to any component of the Israeli settler-colonial occupation to be enablers of this occupation as well as apartheid and now genocide. Among the financial institutions that the report highlights is BNP Paribas, which continues to finance arms companies supplying the Israeli army. Barclays, one of Europe’s largest banks, remains invested in military technology suppliers whose equipment has been used in airstrikes on Gaza and in surveillance of Palestinian civilians. The Norwegian Government Pension Fund Global, one of the largest pension funds in the world, is identified for holding shares in corporations tied to the occupation infrastructure. AXA, the French insurance giant, is also called out for maintaining financial relationships with companies contributing to apartheid policies, home demolitions, and population control systems. The companies that these financial institutions hold investments in are also financed by Dutch financial institutions.
As the report by the Special Rapporteur clearly confirms, all corporate entities, whether subsidiaries, parent companies or investors that are involved with any component of the occupation risk being implicated and potentially criminally complicit in severe violations of international law, including international crimes. Financial institutions need to urgently cease financing complicit companies and stop enabling occupation, apartheid and genocide.
Call upon your bank, pension fund or insurer to take action and divest: Banken, verzekeraars en pensioenfondsen investeren in bedrijven betrokken bij illegale nederzettingen in bezet Palestijns gebied | www.eerlijkegeldwijzer.nl
The UN Special Rapporteur’s report can be downloaded from the website of the UN Human Rights Council.
