"The Holy Land Principles: Lowering the Bar on Human Rights", 25 March 2015

...Our examination shows that the Holy Land Principles fall short of the most basic and widely recognized standards of corporate respect for both human rights and labor rights. When corporate guidelines set a lower bar than existing non-voluntary and regulatory frameworks, they could be used to divert corporate accountability. We are concerned that the Principles in their present form are too limited in scope and too vague to support a change of corporate policies. Moreover, until they are amended to respond to the conditions in the occupied Palestinian territory, these Principles might stand in the way of other, more promising approaches. Based on these concerns, we recommend that shareholders abstain in the upcoming votes on the Holy Land Principles resolutions.The following report describes our findings in detail, and outlines some suggested improvements...