Dear
I am writing to you as the county councillor responsible for the area where I live, to express my deep concern that pension funds administered by Hertfordshire County Council are being used to facilitate war crimes and other grave human rights abuses.
I understand that local residents have been campaigning for several years now for the HCC Pensions Committee to commit to divesting from companies complicit in illegal occupation, apartheid, war crimes and genocide against Palestinians, but that these calls have been largely ignored. Against that backdrop, and in light of the increasingly horrifying situation in Gaza, I urge you to do everything in your power to address this.
The Hertfordshire Pension Fund administered by HCC has a Responsible Investment Policy, which specifies human rights as a priority consideration. Where companies keep contributing to serious human rights violations despite engagement calling for them to change their business practices, the policy underlines the option of divesting from those companies.
Currently, the Hertfordshire Pension Fund invests in seven companies that are directly complicit in crimes against humanity and other grave human rights abuses against Palestinians (see here). These firms have been subject to years’ worth of engagement calling for them to change their business practices; but in all cases, they have failed to take appropriate measures. For example, the Hertfordshire Pension Fund invests in RTX Corp, a US arms firm that supplies the Israeli military with missiles used to commit war crimes in Gaza. It also invests in Booking Holdings Inc, which advertises rental accommodation in illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. Despite repeated engagement from the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and UK-based pension funds, Booking Holdings has continued to profit from war crimes in breach of the Geneva Conventions. It is high time for the HCC Pensions Committee to implement its own Responsible Investment Policy and commit to divesting from these companies.
The Herts Palestine Support Coalition (divestherts.org) recently collected over 2,000 signatures from people who live, work or study in Hertfordshire, calling for HCC to divest from companies complicit in grave human rights abuses against Palestinians. The Hertfordshire branch of UNISON, the main body representing members of the Hertfordshire Pension Fund, also recently passed a motion calling for divestment (see here).
A legal opinion recently circulated by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign – prepared by counsel Max du Plessis S.C., Tatyana Eatwell and Joshua Jackson, with assistance from Deighton Pierce Glynn – notes that councils have a legal obligation to take steps to divest from companies enabling and profiting from Israel’s genocide, military occupation and apartheid against Palestinians. (see here).
An ethical divestment decision by HCC would follow in the footsteps of comparable steps taken by many other UK councils in recent months, including Cardiff, Lewisham, Wakefield, Norwich, Kingston, Peterborough, Birmingham, Oxford City, Dudley, Sandwell, North Somerset, Tower Hamlets, Bristol City, Manchester City, Islington, and Waltham Forest (see here).
If you sit on the Pensions Committee, you can play a direct role in decision-making on these issues. If you do not sit on the Pensions Committee, there is still much that you can do. Just as major unions like Unite, GMB and UNISON have committed to working within their own spheres of influence to advocate for council pension funds to divest from companies complicit in grave human rights violations against Palestinians, councillors can do the same.
For example:
- You can call on members of the Pensions Committee to explain why, despite this issue having been raised for several years now and despite a Responsible Investment Policy specifying human rights as a priority concern, they continue to approve investments in companies complicit in crimes against humanity and other grave abuses.
- You can explore whether there is potential for HCC to pass a motion on this issue in a full council session, as other councils have done. For copies of such motions, see here.
- You can help to set the expectation that all councillors must respect the overwhelming expert consensus that Israel has subjected Palestinians to decades of illegal occupation, apartheid and war crimes (see here), and that it would be fundamentally unacceptable to ignore or dismiss this expert consensus for reasons of politics and/or prejudice when it comes to matters like investment.
- You can help to raise awareness of these issues among pension scheme members, including local government employees in your own council division.
I would be grateful if you could confirm that you have received this message and if you could let me know what steps you plan to take.
Yours sincerely,
Herts Palestine Support Coalition 