UPDATES
UNHRC publishes “blacklist” of companies active in settlements
Feb 14, 2020 | AIJAC staff
Update from AIJAC
02/2020 #02
This Update provides background and critical analysis of the UN Human Rights Council’s (UNHRC) release of a list of 112 companies who do business in Israeli settlements – issued on Wednesday in response to a resolution passed in 2016.
We lead with general backgrounder and news summary from BICOM. It looks at the resolution that led to the list, the nature of the companies listed – most of them Israeli, including all of Israel’s large banks – and what the announced list is intended to accomplish according to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michele Bachelet. It also reviews the strongly critical reactions from Israel and elsewhere, including long-standing complaints, supported by the US, UK and Australia, about discriminatory anti-Israel bias at the UNHRC. For all the background you need to understand this controversy, CLICK HERE.
Next up is an analysis of the actual UNHRC list of companies and criteria the UNHRC used to choose them, from American columnist Ben Cohen. He notes the prevalence of Israeli companies, with most others American, and analyses the fact that the criteria used to choose most of them has nothing to do with harming Palestinians, but is based on merely providing basic services, such as banking, water, mobile phones, public transport and energy, to the civilian residents of settlements. He makes a strong case that this list can only be understood as part of the UN’s long-standing tendency, going back well before 1967, for providing platforms and tacit support for both boycotts of Israel and Palestinian rejectionism. For his argument in full, CLICK HERE.
Finally, the invaluable NGO UN Watch has provided corrections to 15 myths about the new UNHRC company blacklist, its origins and intentions, and its status under international law. UN Watch notes that the list was created at the instigation of some of the world’s worst human rights violators – many of which, such as China and Morocco, have their own “occupation” problems – despite the opposition of most Western democracies, including the US, UK and EU. Furthermore, the UN Watch information sheet shows that not only is the implication of the list that it is illegal to do business in settlements baseless as a matter of international law, but the list arguably itself breaks key tenets of international law. For this invaluable correction to many incorrect claims about the UNHRC document, CLICK HERE.
Readers may also be interested in…
- There are also allegations from the Israeli government that some of the NGO’s used by the UNHRC in drawing up its list have clear affiliations with widely-banned terrorist organisations.
- Criticism of the UNHRC list from US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and other US politicians. Plus, a summary of the widespread criticisms across the Jewish world.
- An interview on the Trump peace plan with veteran Israeli strategic expert Efraim Inbar. Plus, a discussion of its pros and cons from former British PM Tony Blair.
- Veteran Australian Jewish leader Isi Leibler gives his view on the Trump plan.
- Some examples from the many stories and comments now appearing at AIJAC’s daily “Fresh AIR” blog:
- AIJAC’s statement on the UNHRC listing of companies doing business in the settlements, requesting that Australia condemn it in line with past policy statements on the UNHRC.
- Judy Maynard on Al-Jazeera, and what the skewed coverage it offered about the Trump plan says about the network as a whole.
- Naomi Levin on Australian Labor’s reaction to the peace plan.
- Recent AIJAC guest and Iran specialist Benham Ben Taleblu did a Sky News interview about the Iranian protests and other recent Middle Eastern developments.
- Current AIJAC guest and top Israeli analyst Ehud Yaari’s lecture at the Sydney Institute titled “Donald Trump and his Effect on Iran” will be broadcast on Sky News Extra Channel 604 on Saturday, February 15 at 12.15 PM & 9.00 PM.
UN lists companies operating in Israeli settlements
BICOM Daily Brief, Feb. 13, 2020
What happened: The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) yesterday published a list of 112 companies and corporations that do business in Israeli settlements in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights.
- The publication follows a 2016 UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) resolution to form a list of companies that operate inside Israeli settlements in the West Bank and list “activities that raised particular human rights concerns” in the Palestinian territories such as providing material and services that would support the expansion of, or help “maintain,” Israeli settlements. At the time, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al-Hussein said: “We hope that our work in consolidating and communicating the information in the database will assist States and businesses in complying with their obligations and responsibilities under international law.”
- Of the listed companies, the majority, 94, are Israeli and include Israel’s largest banks, mobile phone companies, retail and food companies.
- Eighteen companies are international, including three from the UK; JCB, Greenkote and Opodo. Other large international companies include Airbnb, Expedia, TripAdvisor and Motorola.
- The High Commissioner for Human Rights Michele Bachelet said: “While the settlements as such are regarded as illegal under international law, this report does not provide a legal characterisation of the activities in question, or of business enterprises’ involvement in them.”
Context: Israel has long accused the UNHRC of bias, pointing to the council’s permanent agenda item 7 about Israel that is discussed at every meeting of the UNHRC.
- In 2018 the US left the UNHRC citing its bias towards Israel. The US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley at the time called it a “cesspool of political bias”. Israel was never a member of the council but cut ties with the body, though continued contacts with the OHCHR, the professional arm of the UNHRC.
- The UK announced in March 2019 that it would vote against all resolutions proposed under item 7 in protest at its continued inclusion on the council’s agenda.
- Israel and the US have tried for the last three years to prevent the publication of the list and it is unclear why it has been published now
- There is concern in Israel that the international companies listed may come under political pressure to cease all business activities in the West Bank.
Reactions: The Israeli Foreign Ministry announced that it was severing all relations with the UNHRC and the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Foreign Minister Yisrael Katz called the publication of the list a: “Disgraceful capitulation to pressure from countries and organisations that want to hurt Israel. The decision to continue the anti-Israel line of the Human Rights Council is a blot on the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.”
- President Reuven Rivlin said: “I am proud to give these businesses a platform, they contribute to Israeli society, to the economy and to peace. We call on our friends in the world to speak out against this disgraceful initiative that recalls benighted eras.”
- Rami Levy Supermarkets, who are on the list, said: “If they could see the coexistence and all the people who earn a living there—Jews and Arabs together—they would encourage these kinds of businesses and not put them on this kind of blacklist. Businesses that are owned by people from the Arab and the Jewish sector work side by side in the malls. Thousands of Palestinians are employed in these places. Had they examined the matter in-depth, they would never have dared to draw up this list. They are only hurting this sector.”
- Palestinian Authority (PA) Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki called the publication of the list “a victory for international law”.
- PA Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said: “We will pursue the companies listed in the report legally through international legal institutions and through the courts in their countries for their role in violating human rights. We will demand compensation for illegally using our occupied lands and for engaging in economic activity in our lands without submitting to Palestinian laws and paying taxes.”
Looking ahead: Israeli Foreign Ministry officials said that the report had no legal ramifications but the OHCHR could now present the list as a resolution at the upcoming UNHRC’s 43rd session that opens in Geneva on 24 February.
- The list of companies is clearly designed by the Human Right’s Council as a tool to shine a spotlight on companies operating in the West Bank in order to facilitate boycott campaigns and political pressure campaigns to force them to cease or drastically limit their activities in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Breaking down the UNHRC blacklist
The fact the overwhelming majority of the companies are Israeli indicates that there is a more sinister aim at work here.
Ben Cohen
JNS.org, February 12, 2020
View of the U.N. Human Rights Council special session on “the deteriorating human-rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem,” May 2018. Photo by Elma Okic/U.N.
In the halls of the United Nations, they’re calling it a “database,” but it’s more commonly and accurately known as a “blacklist.” It’s a list of more than 100 companies conducting business activities with Jewish communities and Israeli enterprises in the West Bank that was published, a good four years after it was first mooted, by the U.N. Human Rights Council last Wednesday.
Given the litter of authoritarian states and theocracies that compose the UNHRC, as well as its notorious “Item 7”—an annual fixed agenda item that focuses the HRC on alleged Israeli misdeeds only—the eventual release of the blacklist has not come as a huge surprise. The justification for its existence expressed in the official report of Michele Bachelet, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, is nevertheless worth a closer look.
The list comprises companies deemed by the UNHRC to be complicit in encouraging, building and maintaining “Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and in the occupied Syrian Golan.” There are 10 categories that the UNHRC uses to determine exactly how this complicity functions, so if you are conducting business with these Jewish communities, and you are engaged in “listed activities” in the construction, demolition, private security, banking, natural resource or transport sectors, chances are that you will be on the blacklist.
Theoretically, the blacklist is global in its ambition, with a mandate to examine “business enterprises, whether domiciled in Israel, the Occupied Palestinian Territory or abroad, carrying out listed activities in relation to the Occupied Palestinian Territory.” But when you break down the list of companies by country origin, two features stand out.
First, of the 112 companies blacklisted, 95 are Israeli. A plurality of the remaining 17 is American, with the remainder made up of Europeans and one Thai enterprise. Second, despite the 10 categories listed by the UNHRC as justification for inclusion on the blacklist, the vast majority of the companies included fall into only three of them. These are: “The provision of services and utilities supporting the maintenance and existence of settlements, including transport” (category E); “Banking and financial operations helping to develop, expand or maintain settlements and their activities, including loans for housing and the development of businesses” (category F); “The use of natural resources, in particular water and land, for business purposes” (category G).
One of the companies listed by the UNHRC is the Israeli national bus company Egged, for providing public transport to residents of settlements.
Instructively, two of the remaining categories were entirely absent from the blacklist.
No companies were found to have made “[U]se of benefits and reinvestments of enterprises owned totally or partially by settlers for developing, expanding and maintaining the settlements” (category J). Nor were there any companies responsible for the “[C]aptivity of the Palestinian financial and economic markets, as well as practices that disadvantage Palestinian enterprises, including through restrictions on movement, administrative and legal constraints (category I).”
The targets of the blacklist are judged to be guilty of fostering Israeli economic activity in the disputed territories, rather than the more specific offense of restricting or damaging the Palestinians’ own economy. Once more, then, the United Nations’ principal human-rights body has demonstrated that “solidarity” with the Palestinians does not mean the improvement of their daily lives through education, higher incomes and other benefits, but an institutional fixation with the physical presence of Israeli civilians in “occupied territories.”
The fact the overwhelming majority of the companies on the blacklist are Israeli indicates that there is a more sinister aim at work here. The only international institution in which the BDS movement to boycott Israel has any platform is the UN. The BDS campaign has always insisted that Israel be sanctioned in its entirety, in order to pave the way for the defeat of an occupation that began not in 1967, but in 1948, with the very creation of the Jewish state. The blacklist now being operated by the UNHRC is an approximation of that campaign. Its purpose is not to create a Palestinian state, or develop a Palestinian economy, but to poke at Israel’s very legitimacy by adopting the tactics of those who dispute Israel’s right to exist in the first place.
All that said, the publication of the blacklist fits very neatly with the present rejectionist spirit of Palestinian diplomacy. Indeed, the United Nations is the ideal vehicle for the Palestinians with its network of official solidarity committees, NGO conferences and internal propaganda departments that promote the Palestinian-refugee “right of return” to the 1948 territories. But then, that was always the case. The continued prominence of the world body as an advocate for the Palestinians only demonstrates how their cause has failed in other, more impactful forums. Because while the United Nations can sanction the official Palestinian narrative of dispossession and “Zionist” occupation and while it can lend a patina of credibility to the legal warfare faced by Israel on the international stage, it cannot deliver the Palestinians a better future.
As long as they remain the cause célèbre of the United Nations—and the United Nations alone—the Palestinian depiction of dialogue and negotiation as a form of betrayal will never be cast aside. Like the 1974 General Assembly resolution equating Zionism with racism or the 2001 Durban anti-racism conference that rounded on Israel, the publication of the blacklist by the UNHRC amounts to an attack on Israel’s legitimacy that no other member state would be expected to tolerate. Some 75 years after the creation of this world body, the contention that the legal and moral right of the Jewish people to a sovereign existence is inferior when compared to every other nationality in the world continues to haunt its deliberations.
Ben Cohen is a New York City-based journalist and author who writes a weekly column on Jewish and international affairs for JNS.
The U.N.’s Anti-Israel Blacklist: Myths & Facts on the “Settlements Database”
The Mandate
On March 24, 2016, at its 31st session, the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) adopted resolution 31/36 entitled “Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and in the occupied Syrian Golan.”
The resolution requested the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, in close consultation with the Working Group on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises, to produce a database of all business enterprises that “directly and indirectly, enabled, facilitated and profited from the construction and growth of the settlements.” The database is to be updated annually.
The High Commissioner was instructed to submit the data in the form of a report to the Council at its March 2017 session, but he asked for the deadline to be delayed until December 2017. This deadline was missed by a month, and the report was submitted on January 26, 2018, but the database itself was not included due to a lack of resources, wrote the High Commissioner. His office identified 206 companies that fit the criteria of Resolution 31/36, but the office had not been able to communicate with all of them and expected the database would be published at some future date. Read More
Myths & Facts
1. MYTH: The UNHRC members who voted for the resolution and creation of this blacklist were motivated by concerns of human rights and international law.
Many of the countries which supported the blacklist have their own “occupation” problems, such as Morocco in Western Sahara.
FACT: The listed co-sponsors on the resolution creating the blacklist were virtually all tyrannies or other non-democracies with egregious records on human rights, who oppose any positive human rights mechanisms at the UN, including: Kuwait on behalf of the 22-member Arab Group, Pakistan on behalf of the 56-nation Organization of Islamic Cooperation, Sudan, Venezuela, Algeria, Bahrain, Bolivia, Chad, Cuba, Djibouti, Ecuador, Egypt, and Libya.
Likewise, most of the 32 countries who voted for resolution were also non-democracies, including Algeria, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Burundi, China, Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Kyrgyzstan, Maldives, Morocco, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Venezuela and Viet Nam.
On the contrary, many of those voting for the resolution did so to deflect attention from their own abuses of human rights and international law, including:
Morocco voted for the resolution even as it Illegally occupies Western Sahara since 1974.
Russia voted for the resolution even as it illegally occupies Georgian territories of Abkazia and South Ossetia since 2008 and illlegally annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.
China voted for the resolution even as it deprives Tibetans’ of basic freedoms, including freedom of speech, assembly, movement, and religion and exploits Tibet’s natural resources to benefit China, not Tibet and employs forced labor to produce goods exported to the United States. According to Chinese defector Chen Guangcheng, “many of the trappings of the [Christmas] holiday” are made by Chinese prisoners forced to work 10-15 hours a day who are harshly punished for failing to meet quotas. Workers at toy factories supplying Mattel, McDonalds and Disney regularly work more than double the amount of legally permitted overtime in inhuman conditions. Chinese vocational students as young as 16 are forced to work 12 hour days for months on end in factories producing computer components for global companies such as Hewlett-Packard and Apple in order to receive graduation certificates.
Qatar voted for the resolution even as it subjects 800,000 migrants in the country to build stadiums for the 2022 World Cup to modern slavery under inhumane and life-threatening working conditions. Though Qatar does not publicize information on migrant worker death, hundreds have reportedly died building stadiums for the World Cup. Qatar is ranked 5 out of 167 on the Global Slavery Index 2016.
Saudi Arabia voted for the resolution even as it causes the deaths of thousands of Yemeni civilians in bombing campaign using weapons supplied by the UK, France and the US.
Venezuela voted for the resolution even as it beats, arrests, jails and tortures peaceful protesters, dissidents, and students, and as its policies have caused mass hunger while the military controls food imports and gets rich by selling food on the black market.
2. MYTH: But at least the few democracies who voted for the resolution were motivated by objective concerns about doing business in occupied or disputed territories.
3. MYTH: All UNHRC members supported the blacklist, which enjoys support from an international consensus.
FACT: Fifteen UNHRC members refused to support the blacklist, including Belgium, France, Germany, Netherlands, United Kingdom. Strong objections included:
- United States: The U.S. was on a mandatory year off of the UNHRC in March 2016 when resolution 31/36 was adopted and, thus, was not eligible to vote. However, it strongly opposed the move at the time, calling it an expression of UN anti-Israel bias and stating that it was beyond the UNHRC’s mandate. More recently, Nikki Haley called the database “shameful” and described it as “an ugly creation of the Human Rights Council.” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said, “We have made clear our opposition regarding the creation of a database of businesses operating in Israeli settlements in the occupied territories, and we have not participated and will not participate in its creation or contribute to its content.”
- United Kingdom: UK officials strongly criticized the UNHRC for exceeding its authority in creating the blacklist, and said:
“Human rights obligations are directed at states, and not individuals or businesses, who must determine their trading relationships for themselves; as such, we have no plans to set up an equivalent database. Ultimately it is the decision of an individual or company whether to operate in settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The British Government neither encourages nor offers support to such activity.”
- The European Union opposed the blacklist provision and attempted unsuccessfully to persuade the Palestinians to remove that paragraph in return for EU support of the rest of the resolution.
In addition, many countries refused to engage with information requests made by the UN about the blacklist, as confirmed by the High Commissioner in his report.
4. MYTH: The blacklist is fully in line with EU policy to deny support to occupations and settlements anywhere in the world.
FACT: The EU has no such policy of denying support to occupations or settlements, except in the case of Israel. Indeed, with Morocco, the EU has a fishing agreement in place for which it pays €40 million annually and receives access to all of Morocco’s fishing waters, including the waters off the coast of Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara.
Furthermore, the EU’s foreign aid agreement with Morocco contains no condition that the millions in European aid to Morocco will not be used in Western Sahara.
Similarly, with Turkey, the EU has placed no restrictions on grants to Turkey for the Horizon 2020 scientific research program to ensure monies would not reach Turkish universities operating in Turkish-occupied Northern Cyprus. (Though such restrictions are in place on grants to Israel for the same scientific research program).
In addition, the EU has not advocated boycotts of the Turkish hydrocarbon company or Turkish universities operating in Turkish-occupied Northern Cyprus. The EU provides direct aid of €28 million per year to the Turkish Cypriot community, including grants to students and businesses.
FACT: The goal of the database is to discourage companies from doing business in Israeli settlements, as recommended by Paragraph 117 of the UN Report on Settlements which is expressly referenced in resolution 31/36, and thereby to pressure Israel economically to withdraw from the settlements. As such, it is punitive in nature. Furthermore, at least one senior Palestinian official has expressed hope the blacklist will lead to sanctions.Significantly, under Article 41 of the UN Charter, only the Security Council has the authority to impose sanctions on a UN member state, including “complete or partial interruption of economic relations and of rail, sea, air, postal, telegraphic, radio, and other means of communication, and the severance of diplomatic relations.” Thus, the creation of a blacklist designed to pressure Israel economically is beyond the authority of the Human Rights Council.
Despite UNHRC to the claim to the contrary, there seems little doubt this list is designed to facilitate Boycotts and economic pressure against Israel – even though this is legally beyond the Council’s power.
6. MYTH: All business activity in settlements is illegal.
- Business activity in settlements is ubiquitous. The home countries of businesses operating in other occupied territories (e.g., Western Sahara and Northern Cyprus, among others) have never tried to stop such commercial operations. Such companies often receive advice from international law experts that business in settlements does not violate international law or human rights. This is consistent with historical practice. For example, France occupied the Saar region of Germany at the end of World War II and used it to divert German coal and steel production to France.
- International treaties permit the occupying power to conduct business in occupied territories. Article 43 of the 1907 Hague Convention obligates the occupying power to “restore and ensure, as far as possible, public order and safety.” This is understood to permit the occupying power to build infrastructure including roads, sanitation, communications and security. The Fourth Geneva Convention authorizes the occupying power to do business in territory it controls and does not permit the occupied population to veto this.
- UN Legal Advisor approves business activity in settlements. In a 2002 memo on Western Sahara, UN legal advisor Hans Corell wrote that exploitation of the natural resources of an occupied territory should only be done “for the benefit of the peoples of those [t]erritories, on their behalf or in consultation with their representatives,” but other economic activity in the territory not involving exploitation or physical removal of natural resources could be undertaken without particular approval from, or benefit to, the local population.
- UK Supreme court rules sale of settlement products does not aid international law violations. In 2014, the UK Supreme Court ruled that selling Israeli Dead Sea products in London does not amount to aiding and abetting the unlawful transfer of Israeli settlers to occupied territory, and labeling the products as coming from the Dead Sea, Israel, was not misleading. See Richardson v. Director of Public Prosecutions, 2014.
- French courts rule settlement products and settlement infrastructure not illegal. In 2013 and 2014, a French court held that “Made in Israel” labeling on products produced by Soda Stream in the West Bank is not misleading, and that the products and their manufacture are not illegal. See Tribunal de grande instance, No. 13/06023, 2014. Separately, the Court of Appeals of Versailles dismissed a case against French companies involved in building the Jerusalem light rail, which partially crosses the 1949 Armistice Line. The court held that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to private companies and, thus, do not ban private economic activity in settlements. It confirmed that the occupying power has a duty to administer the territory, including by creating transportation infrastructure. See France-Palestine Solidarite v. Alstom, 11/05331, 2013.
7. MYTH: The blacklist is consistent with the Israeli-Palestinian peace accords and promotes peace.
FACT: The opposite is true. The blacklist promotes violation of the treaties between Israel and the PLO known as the Oslo Accords. The Oslo Accords state that final status issues including borders, Jerusalem, refugees and settlements are to be “negotiated in the permanent status negotiations.” (Article 31, Para. 5). Thus, settlements are to be resolved through negotiations, not by unilateral actions at the UN. By favoring the Palestinian side on an issue that is supposed to be subject to bilateral negotiations, the UN weakens Israel’s negotiating position and makes a final compromise more difficult to achieve.
Furthermore, under the Oslo Accords, Israel is responsible for the security of Israelis and Settlements, and for protecting Israelis against the threat of terrorism. (Articles 12 and 13). Any attempt by the UN to disrupt provision of, or to deprive Israel of, any type of security-related product or service, as advocated in resolution 31/36, contravenes the Oslo Accords.
8. MYTH: The blacklist respects due process for all companies that may be listed.
FACT: The criteria for inclusion in the blacklist violates due process rules and norms because it is hopelessly vague and overbroad, and does not provide any meaningful guidance to companies. The resolution asks “to produce a database of all business enterprises involved in the activities detailed in paragraph 96 of the afore-mentioned report [construction, surveillance, security services, utilities, banking, etc.]…” (emphasis added).
The activities in paragraph 96 are deemed problematic because they “raise particular human rights violations concerns,” without specifying how or why. The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights merely repeats the vague and overbroad language of resolution 31/36 and paragraph 96, and has not published any clear guidelines for companies setting the criteria for inclusion in the blacklist. In Part B of his January 2018 report, the High Commissioner highlights the arbitrariness of the criteria when he explains that only companies engaged in the listed activities are included, while companies involved in human rights violations, but not engaged in those enumerated activities, are excluded.
10. MYTH: The blacklist is not anti-Israel, it is merely about creating transparency regarding companies and products for the benefit of investors and consumers. (Report of the High Commissioner, Jan. 26, 2018, Paragraph 9; Amnesty International Joint Letter, Nov. 30, 2017, Paragraph 3; Joint Letter from 8 NGOs, Nov. 8, 2017, Paragraphs 4-8).
11. MYTH: The blacklist is fully consistent with international human rights law.
FACT: By targeting Israel alone and ignoring businesses operating in other occupation and conflict situations, the blacklist promotes religious and national origin discrimination in violation of the principles of equality and non-discrimination set forth in the UN Charter, international human rights treaties, and the UNHRC’s own founding guidelines. The dictatorships who ordered the blacklist in 2016, and the BDS activists who supported them, seek to promote what former UNHRC rapporteur Richard Falk described as a “legitimacy war” against Israel. Throughout history, boycotts have discriminated against Jews.
FACT: The Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights expressly envision the continued operation of businesses in areas affected by conflict. These Guiding Principles merely call on businesses to conduct due diligence to assess the human rights impact of their activities, with the aim of maintaining business operations in conflict areas while ensuring appropriate steps are taken to protect human rights. Significantly, the burden to conduct due diligence is on the company itself, not an outside actor like the UN. As it relates to the laws of occupation, maintaining business in occupied territory is also consistent with (1) international treaties which authorize the occupying power to conduct business in occupied territories, particularly to ensure the “orderly government” of the territory, and (2) recent jurisprudence from France and the UK affirming that principle.
The Guiding Principles suggests that a business can “consider” withdrawing from a conflict-area in the limited circumstance where the business has determined it is not able to protect human rights. Even then, the business must examine the “adverse human rights impact” of withdrawing before making a decision.
In the case of the settlements, both Israelis and Palestinians may be adversely impacted by withdrawal of business from the area. The Guiding Principles do not mention or promote the creation of any type of blacklist for businesses operating in conflict-affected areas. The fact that businesses have historically operated and continue to operate in occupation contexts throughout the world, without opposition from their home countries and with advice from international law experts, demonstrates that such business activity does not in itself violate international law or human rights.
Targetted by the blacklist are companies like Rami Levy Supermarkets, whose stores have the reputation as a place where Israelis and Palestinians both shop and work side by side in complete equality.
FACT: As set forth in paragraph 17 of resolution 31/36, the criteria for inclusion in the blacklist is extremely broad—any business “involved in the activities detailed in paragraph 96 [of the UN report on settlements]”—and is not tied to actual human rights abuses. Companies that provide essential security services for the protection of all Israelis (not just those in settlements) are on the list. Likewise, companies that provide basic infrastructure and utilities to Israeli settlements, including, transportation, sewage, electricity, and waste removal, are on the list irrespective of how these companies treat or relate to Palestinians. High Commissioner Zeid Hussein himself admitted that human rights is not the driving force behind the blacklist when he said in his January 2018 report that not all companies involved in human rights violations are included on the list.
As Nikki Haley said in June 2017: “Blacklisting companies without even looking at their employment practices or their contributions to local empowerment, but rather based entirely on their location in areas of conflict is contrary to the laws of international trade and to any reasonable definition of human rights.”
14. MYTH: The blacklist helps Palestinians.
15. MYTH: The UNHRC blacklist respects and preserves Israel’s inherent right to self-defense under international law.
FACT: Article 51 of the UN Charter affirms the “inherent right of individual or collective self-defense” for UN member states subjected to armed attacks. Terrorist attacks against Israel, whether in the form of suicide bombings, knife attacks, vehicular attacks, rocket fire or mortar shelling, all trigger this right to self-defense. Yet a major aspect of the blacklist targets Israel’s security and self-defense infrastructure, thereby undermining its ability to protect its citizens from attack. Furthermore, by including on the blacklist companies that provide security to Israeli settlements, the UNHRC implicitly legitimizes violence and murder against Israeli civilians beyond the green line—clear violations of international law. Such attacks include the July 21, 2017 attack in which three members of the Salomon family were murdered in their home, the summer 2016 murder of 13-year-old Hallel Yaffa Ariel while she slept, the October 2015 double execution of Eitam and Naama Henkin as their four young children watched in horror, and many other similar attacks.
March 24, 2016 – UN HRC adopts resolution 31/36 calling for the High Commissioner for Human Rights to publish a database of companies doing business in Israeli settlements to be transmitted to the Human Rights Council at its 34th session in March 2017. The resolution is adopted by a vote of 32 to 0 with 15 abstentions. The United States has no vote on the resolution as it is adopted during the United States’ mandatory year off from the Human Rights Council following two consecutive terms.
December 23, 2017 – UN General Assembly approves budget of $138,700 to fund compilation of the database—$102,400 for salary over eight months and $36,300 for “documentation.”
December 23, 2017 – UN Security Council adopts Resolution 2334 calling Israeli settlements “a flagrant violation of international law.” The United States declines to exercise its veto, abstaining in the vote.
February 13, 2017 – At the request of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the UNHRC agrees to defer publication of the database to no later than December 2017.
September-October 2017 – UN HRC sends letters to 190 companies—130 Israeli and 60 international—warning that they are about to be added to a database of companies doing business in Israeli settlements.
January 26, 2018 – High Commissioner for Human Rights submits report pursuant to Resolution 31/36, but refrains from listing companies. The report identifies 206 companies that fit the criteria of the resolution, located in 21 countries, including Israel, the U.S., Germany, France and the Netherlands. The report recommends more resources be allocated to the project and states that the list will be released at some future date.
August 7, 2018 – Former High Commissioner Zeid Hussein informs Human Rights Council that the database is not complete yet because his office has not completed the process of contacting all the companies.
March 4, 2019 – High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet informs Human Rights Council that her office is still working to discharge the mandate: “Given the novelty of the mandate and its legal, methodological and factual complexity, further consideration is necessary to fully respond to the Council’s request.
Feb 12, 2020 – High Commissioner Bachelet publishes the blacklist consisting of 112 companies, of which 94 are Israelis and the remaining 18 come from six other countries (France, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Thailand, UK, US). Both the report (Para. 19) and accompanying press release acknowledging that the list was not the product of “a judicial or quasi-judicial process,” and that it does not provide a “legal characterization of the activities in question, or of business enterprises’ involvement in them.” Thus, Bachelet effectively admitted that the publication of the list is nothing more than the technical fulfillment of the mandate given to her office by the Council in resolution 31/36 and has no legal value.
5. MYTH: The blacklist is merely a reporting mechanism, not a sanction. Thus the UNHRC acted fully within its mandate in creating this database. (Global Legal Action Network, Dec. 6, 2017, Paragraph 10; Amnesty International, Nov. 30, 2017, Paragraph 7).