"Do Oil Fund investments in the Occupied Palestinian Territory violate human rights?" 24th April 2019

A new report on investments by Norway’s sovereign wealth fund in the Occupied Palestinian Territory looks at institutional investors’ responsibility to respect the human rights impact of settlement business activities, and makes recommendations as to how the fund can better meet its responsibility to respect human rights in line with international standards.

The report, launched on April 24th, 2019 was written by human rights experts from  Essex Business and Human Rights Project  (EBHR) in the United Kingdom - Chiara Macchi, Tara Van Ho, and Luis Felipe Yanes.

The authors suggest the classification of business activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territories in five categories:

• Companies allegedly selling security equipment to occupying forces: Hewlett-Packard Enterprises and MotorolaSolution
• Companies allegedly contributing to home demolitions: Caterpillar
• Companies allegedly engaged in quarrying; Heidelberg Cement
• Companies financing and constructing settlements: Bank Hapoalim, First International Bank of Isreal, Bank Leumi, Cemex, Mizrahi Tefahot Bank, Israeli Discount Bank
• Companies engaged in wall and rail construction: Alstom and Cemex.

The report concludes that the Fund’s responsibility to respect human rights will only be discharged by divesting from companies that cause or contribute to the Israeli settlements in the West Bank and to the human rights violations that stem from the Government of Israel’s approach to the settlements”.

The Business and Human Rights Centre has reached out to all companies above and published their response/ non-response.
The Centre attempted to reach Bank Hapoalim for a response but was unable to contact them. This story will be updated if a response is received from Bank Hapoalim.