Minutes:
There were no apologies for absence.
The Chair informed the Committee that he had, in exercising his discretionary functions, allowed a Member of the Public (Dr. S. Conlan on behalf of Ms. S. Davies) to ask the following question to the Dyfed Pension Fund Committee which would not be debated and a written reply provided.
Question by Dr Conlan (on behalf of Ms. Davies):-
I have received a
response from the Chair of the Fund to my question
about divestment from companies that aid Israel’s breaches
of
international law.
He advised me that
the Fund’s investments in Israel total approximately
£1.3 million and added that, "in response to claims that the
Fund has
over £64 million invested in companies complicit in
Israel’s industrial,
commercial, and military occupation of Palestinian land, I note
that the
majority of these investments are in companies not included on the
UN
Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) database
of
business enterprises involved in listed activities or
business
enterprises involved as parent companies."
It is important to note that those companies on the OHCHR database
are
"... all business enterprises involved in certain specified
activities
related to the Israeli settlements in the occupied
Palestinian
territory, including East Jerusalem."
The invasion of Gaza and the subsequent extensive killing and
maiming of
innocent civilians has changed the legal and ethical basis of
the
selection of Israeli investments that should be divested.
The key points about the International Court of Justice (ICJ)'s
ruling on the Gaza
invasion are well expressed by Amnesty International:
“The
ICJ has issued its opinion and the conclusion
is loud and clear: Israel’s occupation and annexation of the
Palestinian
territories are unlawful, and its discriminatory laws and
policies
against Palestinians violate the prohibition on racial segregation
and
apartheid." The Palestinian Occupied Territories include Gaza.
The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) has identified that
Dyfed
Pension Fund has investments of £64,438,687 in companies
which ‘either
produce weapons and military technology used by Israel in its
attacks on
Palestinians, provide technology and equipment for
Israel’s
infrastructure of military occupation, or are active in illegal
Israeli
settlements, based on stolen Palestinian land’.
Although several of
these companies are indeed not included on the UN OHCHR list, PSC
has used other databases that maintain profiles of companies
commercially involved in the Israeli occupation economy, for
example the
Who Profits Independent Research Centre (https://www.whoprofits.org/).
Although I note that Robeco engages with the companies the Dyfed
Pension
Fund invests in to address environmental, social, and governance
(ESG)
issues, including human rights, the Dyfed pension Fund has its
own
statement of principles which I presume must underpin
Robeco's
engagement. Clearly the Robeco mandate should now give great
prominence
to the ICJ's ruling.
My question for the Committee is therefore: Please would
the committee
of the Dyfed Pension fund commit to disclosure
of the fund's investments
in companies listed as commercially involved in the Israeli
occupation
economy as an initial step towards divestment from those
companies? As pension holders we need to ensure that our
pension
investments are not fuelling human rights abuses that are
recognised in
International Law.