New Details On The UN BDS Blacklist

Another important admission made by Hever relates to concerns I raised on multiple occasions via letters to former U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein and current Commissioner Michelle Bachelet, and also in person with other responsible officials. It was plain that the United Nations did little to no investigation of the targeted companies and had no capacity to do so. Indeed, Hever states that if a company told the United Nations it was not involved in the West Bank, the United Nations “removed them from the list without checking” and that companies were included because they “didn’t bother to answer the Human Rights Committee [sic].”

Notably, the blacklist tarnishes all the companies with the same defamatory brush and provides no evidence to support the United Nations’ claims of alleged human rights violations.

Hever notes that the list was compiled three years ago, demonstrating yet another due process concern I raised with Bachelet and her subordinates.

Hever also mentions the strange case of Germany. In 2018, the United Nations issued its first report on the list. At the time, the United Nations did not name the selected companies, but instead published a table breaking down the number of companies by country. Countries were notified by letters from the OHCHR of the companies located in their jurisdiction. In the 2018 report, the United Nations said it had identified seven German companies for potential inclusion. Yet, in the 2020 publication of the list, no German companies appeared. The failure to include any Germany companies raises several questions as to whether Germany engaged in backroom dealings with the United Nations to get its companies removed from the list or whether it pressured those companies to divest in order to get them off the list. The German government should answer these questions.