The managers of the New Zealand’s $86 billion Super Fund failed to properly address human rights issues when considering whether to exclude companies from its investments, the High Court has found

Justice Simon Mount granted an application by the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) for judicial review of Guardians of New Zealand Superannuation’s policies relating to ethical investment.

In a decision released today, Justice Mount declared parts of the fund’s policy documents, standards and procedures, and its sustainable investment framework were “unreasonable and unlawful”.

The court also ordered the crown entity to pay PSNA’s legal costs.

PSNA co-chair John Minto said the decision was a victory for Palestinian rights, while Guardians of New Zealand Superannuation said it was considering its next move.

The sovereign wealth fund was created in 2001 to help provide for New Zealander’s superannuation costs.

By law, Guardians are required to invest the funds on a prudent commercial basis, manage and administer the fund with best-practice portfolio management, and avoid prejudice to New Zealand’s reputation as “a responsible member of the world community”.

Backbone of case
That last duty formed the backbone of the case taken by PSNA, who have long lobbied the Guardians to divest from companies it claims to be complicit in human rights abuses in the occupied Palestinian territories.

The Guardians excluded development, construction and technology companies involved in settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories in 2012.

In 2021, following years of lobbying by PSNA, the Guardians also excluded five Israeli banks from its portfolio on the grounds there was an unacceptable risk the banks were materially contributing to breaches of human rights standards and that engaging with the banks themselves was unlikely to be effective.

PSNA continued to request the exclusion of other investments due to alleged human rights breaches and focused on four companies that featured on a United Nations Human Rights Council database of companies trading with illegal Israeli settlements — Airbnb, Booking.com, Expedia, and Motorola.

Justice Mount said the chief executive of the Guardians replied to the group in mid-2024 noting none of the companies “currently meets the exclusion threshold under our Sustainable Investment Framework”.

In later correspondence, the Guardians’ head of sustainable investment reiterated that stance, which led PSNA to indicate it would seek the judicial review.

In his findings, Justice Mount noted the Guardian’s 2020 policy documents identified several standards and benchmarks that were later removed — including the Principles for Responsible Investment, principles of the UN Global Compact, and a broad reference to “other good practice standards”.

Earlier policy removed
The earlier policy referred to several sets of standards described as “universally recognised by the world community — with signatories including investment managers, investee companies and the peers of Guardians — and unlikely to be superseded”.

The 2020 policy stated its applicable principles were based on the UN Global Compact, in particular the requirements to support and respect human rights and “no complicity in abuses”.

It also set a threshold for excluding government bonds where there was “widespread condemnation or sanctions by the international community and New Zealand has imposed meaningful diplomatic, economic or military sanctions”.

Justice Mount noted the almost 3000 pages of evidence filed for the judicial review allowed him to gain a picture of how the Guardians had used their policy documents in practice.

The judge noted the Guardians’ approach to excluding investments was not entirely coherent and the policies failed to meet the basic requirements of the law when alleged breaches of human rights standards were concerned.

The Guardians had a duty to reformulate its policy documents to be consistent with the Act, he said.

Minto celebrated the court’s ruling.

Fund raking in money
The group was confident the Super Fund would divest from Airbnb, Booking.com, Expedia and Motorola once it had rewritten its policies to comply with the law, he said.

The High Court judgment showed the Super Fund had invested $67 million in the four companies.

Minto said the fund was raking in money from appalling breaches of international law by Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territories of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

The country’s leading sovereign wealth fund should be setting the benchmark for all New Zealand investment funds, not deriving money from war crimes and massive human rights abuses, he said.

The lack of a clear grounds to exclude companies from investment because of human rights abuses were particularly problematic, Minto said.

“This is beyond outrageous. Our largest sovereign wealth fund, owned by the government on behalf of the people of New Zealand, has no specific references to human rights standards in its investment exclusions policy.”

The case had revealed the exclusions policy was weakened and direct references to human rights standards were removed the year after the fund divested from five Israeli banks, Minto said.

Replaced with vague policy
“The Super Fund replaced a principled policy with an entirely vague and subjective assessment of companies which meant they could resist pressure from human rights groups such as PSNA.

“The fund was entirely making up legal sounding excuses as it went. It meant they could now keep on their books other companies which abuse the human rights of Palestinians,” he said.

“The Super Fund owes us all an apology and in particular an apology to Palestinians here and in Palestine, whose suffering is helping pay the price of the fund’s increasing wealth.”

Guardians of New Zealand Superannuation chief executive Jo Townsend said the crown entity was still considering its response to the decision.

“We recognise that we are investing on behalf of all New Zealanders, and that gives people a legitimate interest in how we manage the fund,” she said.

“We will thoroughly evaluate today’s decision and determine how best to respond to it,” she said.

The UN Human Rights Council database featuring the four companies is from a list of 97 companies involved with illegal Israeli settlements.

The database came about following a 2016 UN Security Council resolution, co-sponsored by New Zealand, that led to diplomatic rupture between the two countries and Israel recalling its ambassador.

Israeli media reported at the time that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully proceeding with the resolution wold be considered a “declaration of war”.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

SPECIAL REPORT: By Ben Bohane

We are no more than 5 minutes out of Bethlehem on a crisp December morning when my  Palestinian driver — let’s call him Ahmed — stops and points to a curl of smoke rising in the valley below, near Beit Jala.

“That’s a local restaurant the Israeli’s are burning since last night. They demand permits even when it is on family land. Israel then gives demolition orders, and no one can stop them.”

It’s the day before Christmas. I’m in the West Bank and Israel for a month to see the situation for myself, to try and understand how this comparatively small area continues to hijack history and our news agenda.

Gaza remains off-limits to all foreign media attempting to report on Israel’s genocide there, so I can’t go.

The international Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) states 249 media personnel have been killed so far by Israel in Gaza, Yemen, Lebanon, Israel and Iran since the Gaza war began.

Israel has killed more journalists in the past three years than any other government in history,

assassinating more than all media personnel killed in all the wars of the 20th century combined.

Israel has also now banned many reputable international NGOs from operating there. In late January, the IDF (Israeli Defence Forces)  finally acknowledged the death toll tally compiled by Palestinian health authorities as accurate, saying it believed 71,000 people had been killed so far — the death toll is now more than 72,000.

I’ve come to the other front, the West Bank, as Israeli settlers and the IDF establish new illegal settlements and make life difficult for Palestinians just trying to eke out a living.

While I’m there, Israel announces 19 new settlements, bringing to 69 the number of new settlements approved in the past few years.

They are slowly circling and strangling Palestinian towns by taking the high ground on hilltops, establishing their own roads to link up with other settlements, and destroying ancient olive groves which locals have long relied on for a meagre income.

Some of these trees are many hundreds of years old, and their desecration seems somehow symbolic of Israel’s attempts to change history and geography.

“We are trapped here”, says Ahmed. “Ever since October 7, Israel has closed off our access to Jerusalem and the rest of Israel. A lot of businesses are struggling to survive after 5 years of shutdowns — first it was covid, and then the Gaza war. No tourists for years.”

Unless they are employed in one of a handful of jobs, such as in hospitals or working for a Christian organisation, Palestinians in the West Bank can’t leave. Denied both Palestinian statehood and Israeli citizenship,

West Bank Palestinians are caught in a limbo where they can’t travel into wider Israel or beyond.

“Israel controls all our movements, all our water, and controls our petrol supply”, says Ahmed. “The only thing they don’t control is the air we breathe, and if they could control that, they would.”

Bulldozer warfare
We visit a home recently bulldozed by settlers and fields uprooted because they were considered too close to the expanding nearby Israeli settlement of Beitar Illit. As locals lose access to their olive orchards, the only trees safe are those within towns or around their homes.

I see a young boy with a wheelbarrow full of seedlings and uprooted olive saplings moving towards a nearby field. Ahmed translates:

“The boy says that part of their resistance is to immediately replant the olive trees when settlers chop them down. The olives aren’t just an income for us, they are part of our identity on this land.”

We have to be quick when visiting the contested edges of these towns and fields, as settlers are always watching from nearby hilltops and the IDF can be on the scene in less than 5 minutes. On two occasions, my driver yells to get us back in the car for a hurried exit when he spots settlers driving down to intercept us.

Returning to Bethlehem, the annual Christmas parade is underway. Hundreds of Palestinian, Arab and Armenian Christians in uniforms march along roads leading to Manger Square in the heart of Bethlehem.

Palestinian Authority police guard the route and churches, including the Orthodox Basilica of the Nativity, first begun by Emperor Constantine’s Christian mother Saint Helena in the 4th century. Under this Byzantine church is a grotto where Jesus was supposedly born.

This is the first time in two years that Christmas celebrations, including a huge Christmas tree, have taken place. With few foreign tourists, shops in Bethlehem are happy to see many Muslim families from across the West Bank visiting with children to see Santa and the holy sites. It’s a peaceful time with Christian and Muslim families celebrating together.

I met Father Issa Thaljieh, a Palestinian (Greek Orthodox) priest overseeing the Basilica.

“Issa” is the Muslim name for Jesus. He says the number of Christians continues to dwindle, from 10 percent of the Palestinian population during the British mandate period 100 years ago, to around 1 percent today. Most live overseas now, with Israel incentivising their departure.

Apartheid
One thing I hadn’t known until I came here is that Israelis are forbidden from entering any West Bank towns. At the entrance to many towns I visited, including Jericho and Bethlehem, are large road signs in red warning Israeli citizens not to enter.

Although usually framed as a security measure to prevent kidnapping, it has the additional impact of preventing ordinary Israelis and Palestinians from mixing together and stops Israelis from really understanding what is going on across the West Bank. It underlined the sense of apartheid, along with the long winding separation wall that snakes between Jerusalem, Bethlehem and the rest of the West Bank.

Always interested in art and graffiti as forms of resistance, I cruise a length of the wall, near two refugee camps inside Bethlehem and come across artist Banksy’s “Walled Off” hotel, which had only reopened the week before after 5 years of closure.

Upstairs is a gallery supporting local artists, downstairs a museum about the wall and “occupation”, along with a chintzy piano bar styled like a frontier saloon.

The hotel faces a section of the wall emblazoned with graffiti and promises “the worst views in the world”. The wall began construction substantially in 2002, runs for 810 kms and is Israel’s biggest infrastructure project. Banksy’s museum quotes the man put in charge of the build, Danny Tirza:

“The main thing the government told me in giving me the job was,

to include as many Israelis inside the fence and leave as many Palestinians outside as possible.

Down the road, a number of local stores have popped up selling cheap Banksy merch, and apparently, Banksy is fine with all the rip-offs.

Other days are spent visiting Jericho and Hebron with its shrine containing the tomb of Abraham, patriarch of all the monotheistic faiths.

It is a town often at flashpoint between Palestinians and hardcore Israeli settlers who have moved right into pockets of the town, protected by IDF soldiers. A day trip to Ramallah is aborted when my driver says that Israeli forces had entered that morning to destroy dozens of shops and shot two people.

“It’s too dangerous today to visit, and besides, it would take us 5 hours to get through the checkpoints instead of one hour as normal,” he says.

Every day across the West Bank, Palestinians must navigate security challenges, declining business and hungry families. Given the impunity with which Israel operates in Gaza, Palestinians across the West Bank are still standing their ground, but without much hope that the international community will stop Israel’s encroachment.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s government wants to extinguish any hope of a two-state solution, but Palestinians will not cede their homes — or their olive trees — easily.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

SPECIAL REPORT: By Ben Bohane

We are no more than 5 minutes out of Bethlehem on a crisp December morning when my  Palestinian driver — let’s call him Ahmed — stops and points to a curl of smoke rising in the valley below, near Beit Jala.

“That’s a local restaurant the Israeli’s are burning since last night. They demand permits even when it is on family land. Israel then gives demolition orders, and no one can stop them.”

It’s the day before Christmas. I’m in the West Bank and Israel for a month to see the situation for myself, to try and understand how this comparatively small area continues to hijack history and our news agenda.

Gaza remains off-limits to all foreign media attempting to report on Israel’s genocide there, so I can’t go.

The international Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) states 249 media personnel have been killed so far by Israel in Gaza, Yemen, Lebanon, Israel and Iran since the Gaza war began.

Israel has killed more journalists in the past three years than any other government in history,

assassinating more than all media personnel killed in all the wars of the 20th century combined.

Israel has also now banned many reputable international NGOs from operating there. In late January, the IDF (Israeli Defence Forces)  finally acknowledged the death toll tally compiled by Palestinian health authorities as accurate, saying it believed 71,000 people had been killed so far — the death toll is now more than 72,000.

I’ve come to the other front, the West Bank, as Israeli settlers and the IDF establish new illegal settlements and make life difficult for Palestinians just trying to eke out a living.

While I’m there, Israel announces 19 new settlements, bringing to 69 the number of new settlements approved in the past few years.

They are slowly circling and strangling Palestinian towns by taking the high ground on hilltops, establishing their own roads to link up with other settlements, and destroying ancient olive groves which locals have long relied on for a meagre income.

Some of these trees are many hundreds of years old, and their desecration seems somehow symbolic of Israel’s attempts to change history and geography.

“We are trapped here”, says Ahmed. “Ever since October 7, Israel has closed off our access to Jerusalem and the rest of Israel. A lot of businesses are struggling to survive after 5 years of shutdowns — first it was covid, and then the Gaza war. No tourists for years.”

Unless they are employed in one of a handful of jobs, such as in hospitals or working for a Christian organisation, Palestinians in the West Bank can’t leave. Denied both Palestinian statehood and Israeli citizenship,

West Bank Palestinians are caught in a limbo where they can’t travel into wider Israel or beyond.

“Israel controls all our movements, all our water, and controls our petrol supply”, says Ahmed. “The only thing they don’t control is the air we breathe, and if they could control that, they would.”

Bulldozer warfare
We visit a home recently bulldozed by settlers and fields uprooted because they were considered too close to the expanding nearby Israeli settlement of Beitar Illit. As locals lose access to their olive orchards, the only trees safe are those within towns or around their homes.

I see a young boy with a wheelbarrow full of seedlings and uprooted olive saplings moving towards a nearby field. Ahmed translates:

“The boy says that part of their resistance is to immediately replant the olive trees when settlers chop them down. The olives aren’t just an income for us, they are part of our identity on this land.”

We have to be quick when visiting the contested edges of these towns and fields, as settlers are always watching from nearby hilltops and the IDF can be on the scene in less than 5 minutes. On two occasions, my driver yells to get us back in the car for a hurried exit when he spots settlers driving down to intercept us.

Returning to Bethlehem, the annual Christmas parade is underway. Hundreds of Palestinian, Arab and Armenian Christians in uniforms march along roads leading to Manger Square in the heart of Bethlehem.

Palestinian Authority police guard the route and churches, including the Orthodox Basilica of the Nativity, first begun by Emperor Constantine’s Christian mother Saint Helena in the 4th century. Under this Byzantine church is a grotto where Jesus was supposedly born.

This is the first time in two years that Christmas celebrations, including a huge Christmas tree, have taken place. With few foreign tourists, shops in Bethlehem are happy to see many Muslim families from across the West Bank visiting with children to see Santa and the holy sites. It’s a peaceful time with Christian and Muslim families celebrating together.

I met Father Issa Thaljieh, a Palestinian (Greek Orthodox) priest overseeing the Basilica.

“Issa” is the Muslim name for Jesus. He says the number of Christians continues to dwindle, from 10 percent of the Palestinian population during the British mandate period 100 years ago, to around 1 percent today. Most live overseas now, with Israel incentivising their departure.

Apartheid
One thing I hadn’t known until I came here is that Israelis are forbidden from entering any West Bank towns. At the entrance to many towns I visited, including Jericho and Bethlehem, are large road signs in red warning Israeli citizens not to enter.

Although usually framed as a security measure to prevent kidnapping, it has the additional impact of preventing ordinary Israelis and Palestinians from mixing together and stops Israelis from really understanding what is going on across the West Bank. It underlined the sense of apartheid, along with the long winding separation wall that snakes between Jerusalem, Bethlehem and the rest of the West Bank.

Always interested in art and graffiti as forms of resistance, I cruise a length of the wall, near two refugee camps inside Bethlehem and come across artist Banksy’s “Walled Off” hotel, which had only reopened the week before after 5 years of closure.

Upstairs is a gallery supporting local artists, downstairs a museum about the wall and “occupation”, along with a chintzy piano bar styled like a frontier saloon.

The hotel faces a section of the wall emblazoned with graffiti and promises “the worst views in the world”. The wall began construction substantially in 2002, runs for 810 kms and is Israel’s biggest infrastructure project. Banksy’s museum quotes the man put in charge of the build, Danny Tirza:

“The main thing the government told me in giving me the job was,

to include as many Israelis inside the fence and leave as many Palestinians outside as possible.

Down the road, a number of local stores have popped up selling cheap Banksy merch, and apparently, Banksy is fine with all the rip-offs.

Other days are spent visiting Jericho and Hebron with its shrine containing the tomb of Abraham, patriarch of all the monotheistic faiths.

It is a town often at flashpoint between Palestinians and hardcore Israeli settlers who have moved right into pockets of the town, protected by IDF soldiers. A day trip to Ramallah is aborted when my driver says that Israeli forces had entered that morning to destroy dozens of shops and shot two people.

“It’s too dangerous today to visit, and besides, it would take us 5 hours to get through the checkpoints instead of one hour as normal,” he says.

Every day across the West Bank, Palestinians must navigate security challenges, declining business and hungry families. Given the impunity with which Israel operates in Gaza, Palestinians across the West Bank are still standing their ground, but without much hope that the international community will stop Israel’s encroachment.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s government wants to extinguish any hope of a two-state solution, but Palestinians will not cede their homes — or their olive trees — easily.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

SAMUEL L. JACKSON: And the Oscar goes to ‘No Other Land’.

AMY GOODMAN: The Palestinian-Israeli film No Other Land won for best documentary. The film follows the struggles of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank community of Masafer Yatta to stay on their land amidst violent attacks by Israeli settlers aimed at expelling them. The film was made by a team of Palestinian-Israeli filmmakers, including the Palestinian journalist Basel Adra, who lives in Masafer Yatta, and the Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham. 

Both filmmakers — Palestinian activist and journalist Basel Adra, who lives in Masafer Yatta, and Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham — spoke at the ceremony. Adra became the first Palestinian filmmaker to win an Oscar.

BASEL ADRA: Thank you to the Academy for the award. It’s such a big honor for the four of us and everybody who supported us for this documentary.

About two months ago, I became a father. And my hope to my daughter, that she will not have to live the same life I am living now, always fearing — always — always fearing settlers’ violence, home demolitions and forceful displacements that my community, Masafer Yatta, is living and facing every day under the Israeli occupation.

‘No Other Land’ reflects the harsh reality that we have been enduring for decades and still resist as we call on the world to take serious actions to stop the injustice and to stop the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian people.

YUVAL ABRAHAM: We made this — we made this film, Palestinians and Israelis, because together our voices are stronger.

We see each other — the atrocious destruction of Gaza and its people, which must end; the Israeli hostages brutally taken in the crime of October 7th, which must be freed.

When I look at Basel, I see my brother. But we are unequal. We live in a regime where I am free under civilian law and Basel is under military laws that destroy his life and he cannot control.

There is a different path: a political solution without ethnic supremacy, with national rights for both of our people. And I have to say, as I am here: The foreign policy in this country is helping to block this path.

And, you know, why? Can’t you see that we are intertwined, that my people can be truly safe if Basel’s people are truly free and safe? There is another way.

It’s not too late for life, for the living. There is no other way. Thank you.

Israeli and Palestinian documentary ‘No Other Land’ wins Oscar. Video: Democracy Now!

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

With international media’s attention on the Israeli and Palestinian captives exchange,  Israel’s military and settlers have been forcibly displacing tens of thousands of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, says Al Jazeera’s Listening Post media programme.

The European Union has condemned Israel’s military operation in West Bank, attacking and killing refugees, and destroying refugee camps while the Western media has been barely reporting this.

It has also criticised the violence by settlers in illegal West Bank villages.

Israel’s military operation in the occupied territory has been ongoing for more than 40 days and has resulted in dozens of casualties, the displacement of about 40,000 Palestinians from their homes, and the destruction of civilian infrastructure.

The EU has expressed its “grave concern” about Israel’s continuing military operation in the occupied West Bank in a statement.

“The EU calls on Israel, in addressing its security concerns in the occupied West Bank, to comply with its obligations under international humanitarian law by ensuring the protection of all civilians in military operations and allow the safe return of displaced persons to their homes,” the statement read.

“At the same time, extremist settler violence continues throughout the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

Israel ‘has duty to protect’
“The EU recalls that Israel, as the occupying power, has the duty to protect civilians and to hold perpetrators accountable.”

The bloc also condemned Israel’s policy of expanding settlements in the West Bank, and urged that demolitions “including of EU and EU member states-funded structures, must stop”.

“As we enter the holy month of Ramadan, we call on all parties to exercise restraint to allow for peaceful celebrations,” the EU said.

Meanwhile, Israeli journalists are parroting military talking points of security operations.

Israel invades the West Bank.  Video: AJ: The Listening Post

Contributors:
Abdaljawad Omar – Assistant professor, Birzeit University
Jehad Abusalim – Co-editor, Light in Gaza: Writings Born of Fire
Ori Goldberg – Academic and political commentator
Samira Mohyeddin – Founder, On the Line Media

On the Listening Post radar:
This week, the return of the Bibas family bodies dominated Israeli media coverage.

Tariq Nafi reports on how their deaths have been used for “hasbara” — propaganda — after the family accused Netanyahu’s government of exploiting their grief for political purposes.

The Kenyan ‘manosphere’
Populated by loudmouths, shock artists and unapologetic chauvinists, the Kenyan “manosphere” is promoting an influential — and at times dangerous — take on modern masculinity.

Featuring:
Audrey Mugeni – Co-founder, Femicide Count Kenya
Awino Okech – Professor of feminist and security studies, SOAS
Onyango Otieno – Mental health coach and writer

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz