Press Releases

The 2016 United Nation’s Forum on Business and Human Rights
The 2016 United Nation’s Forum on Business and Human Rights

PR/EN/181116/59

BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights attended the United Nation’s Forum on Business and Human Rights which included 60 panel discussions under the theme of "Leadership and Leverage: Embedding human rights in the rules and relationships that drive the global economy". The event drew 2,300 participants, including civil society members and governmental and non-gvernamental agencies as well as political leaders.  

BADIL’s main intervention occurred on 15 November and was a side event in partnership with Who Profits. The event was attended by numerous international NGO representatives including UN representatives. Several issues were raised such as: business responsibilities in the occupied territory based on the United Nations Guiding Principles on how corporations are expected to conduct themselves in occupied territories; business obligations to respect particular elements of international humanitarian law related to the situation of occupation;  exploitation of natural resources; and Israeli colonies with respect to the 4th Geneva Convention which prohibits an occupying power from transferring its nationals into the territory it occupies and its relation to complicity for businesses operating in colonies.

In addition to attending some of the numerous panels of the forum BADIL was able to engage in a number of bilateral and multilateral discussions particularly focused on the the development of a data base of corporations complicit in human rights violations in the oPt. BADIL also envisions a number of joint interventions on business and human rights issues relating to Palestine in the future.  
 
BADIL has produced two working papers on corporate complicity in violations of international law; the first paper was published in 2014 and the second in 2015.