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NEWS: Extra-Territorial Obligation to Protect Human Rights

NEWS: Extra-Territorial Obligation to Protect Human Rights

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NEWS: Extra-Territorial Obligation to Protect Human Rights

 

Media attention in Canada related to the Individual Complaint filed before the Human Rights Committee against Canada for violating extra-territorial obligations related to construction of settlements in Palestine by Canadian corporations:

Palestinians to UN: Canadian Businesses Profit in Settlements

BIL’IN, West Bank — In a move that could greatly impact the actions of third-party states and companies currently profiting from Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise in the West Bank, the Palestinian village of Bil’in recently filed a complaint against Canada with the United Nations.

Residents allege that Canada failed to prevent two Canadian companies — Greenpark International and Greenmount International — from constructing and profiting from settler houses built on their land in the Israeli settlement of Modi’in Illit.

“They don’t respect the international law when they [are] coming and building settlements with illegal methods in our lands,” explained Abdallah Abu Rahmah, an activist and member of the Bil’in Popular Committee.

Bil’in presented its case on March 18 to the UN Human Rights Committee, a body of judicial experts that monitors states’ implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). The petition argues that Canada “violated its extra-territorial obligation to ensure respect” for five separate articles of the ICCPR.

This isn’t the first time that Bil’in residents sued the two Canadian-registered corporations. Residents took their case to the Quebec Superior Court in Montreal in 2008, accusing the companies of “aiding and abetting the commission of a war crime.”

The Quebec court ruled against the villagers’ petition, however, deciding that Canada didn’t have jurisdiction over the matter, and that the complaint should be heard in Israel instead.

“But we know about the situation in Israel. The courts and the system support building settlements,” Abu Rahmah told Al-Monitor. He said that the lack of justice in Israeli and Canadian courts pushed Bil’in to seek accountability at the UN.

Ending impunity

Under the Fourth Geneva Convention, an occupying power may not transfer its civilian population to the territory it occupies, and that doing so constitutes a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The Tripartite Declaration of Principles Concerning Multinational Enterprises and Social Policy also stipulates that companies — and the countries where these companies are registered — should ensure they respect international law standards in their work, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international conventions.

“This is a new approach to human rights enforcement in international law,” explained Israeli attorney Michael Sfard, who is representing the villagers of Bil’in in their complaint. “The idea is that the states’ obligations do not end in avoiding directly violating human rights, but also that they have to regulate the activity of nationals and corporations when those are acting abroad.”

Sfard told Al-Monitor that Canada has six months from the date the complaint was submitted (March 18) to respond. The UN Committee is then expected to make a decision.

“If [the committee decides] that Canada was wrong, then I hope that they will also indicate what are the remedies that Canada has to secure,” he added.

“Canada has post-facto not provided remedy for the victims of these abuses. After our long attempt to get remedy in Canadian courts, which was denied … the Canadian courts have sent us [back] to Israeli courts. Israeli courts are fundamentally not appropriate because in Israel, Israeli courts have concluded that the issue of settlements is not a matter for the courts to [decide].”

Decades of Israeli land confiscation

The Palestinian village of Bil’in — located only 12 kilometers from Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank — counts approximately 1,800 residents. Since 2005, villagers have held weekly demonstrations every Friday to denounce the Israeli separation wall that cuts through their land, and Israel’s continued settlement expansion and occupation.

The Jewish-only settlement of Modi’in Illit, which now holds more than 46,000 residents, was built on land that Israel confiscated from the village, while construction of Israel’s separation wall cut Bil’in off from over half of its land.

In 2007, the Israeli Supreme Court ordered the state to dismantle and rebuild a section of the wall that runs through Bil’in. The ruling was finally implemented in 2011, when 25% of the land was returned to local residents.

There are currently 520,000 Jewish-Israeli settlers living in the occupied West Bank, including 200,000 in east Jerusalem. Over the past decade, the Israeli settler population has grown at a rate of 5.3% annually, compared to only 1.8% growth inside Israel proper.

“They are making our life very difficult. They confiscated our land. They don’t allow us to work on it,” said Abdallah Abu Rahmah, explaining that the Israeli authorities grant residents access to large areas of their agricultural land only once a year.

“Our protest is to remove the settlements on our land, and destroy the wall on our land. Secondly, Bil’in was a model in all of the world in using non-violent resistance and for this, we will continue our struggle until we remove the occupation from our land.”

Setting a precedent

A recent UN-appointed fact-finding mission to assess the impact of Israeli settlements on Palestinians stated that countries must ensure that businesses domiciled under their jurisdiction that work in or in relation to Israeli settlements respect basic Palestinian human rights.

“Private companies must assess the human rights impact of their activities and take all necessary steps — including by terminating their business interests in the settlements — to ensure they are not adversely impacting the human rights of the Palestinian People,” it found.

Since Palestine received upgraded, non-member observer standing at the UN last year, many local groups have urged the Palestinian Authority (PA) to hold Israel accountable at the ICC for alleged war crimes.

While the PA has publicly threatened to go to the ICC, it recently announced that it would suspend efforts to use UN mechanisms to give US-led peace talks a chance to get off the ground. American Secretary of State John Kerry met separately with PA President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier this week.

According to attorney Michael Sfard, Bil’in’s complaint to the UN could not only set an important precedent for Palestinians, but change the conduct of all corporations doing business outside of their national borders.

“If we are successful in this complaint, that means that we will secure a very mighty tool,” Sfard said. “That means that states will have to … regulate companies’ conduct extraterritorially. That would be a huge, huge development in international human rights law.”

Jillian Kestler-D'Amours is a Canadian journalist and documentary filmmaker based in Jerusalem. She is a regular contributor to Inter Press Service news agency, Al Jazeera English and Free Speech Radio News. Follow her on Twitter: @jilldamours.

 

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Climate and Environmental Justice

We have advanced rights-based and gender-transformative transition frameworks through research that centres the lived experiences of women and marginalised communities on the frontlines of extractive energy policies, promoting climate and energy frameworks attentive to the social and care-related impacts of transition pathways. We have developed a clear vision for a gender-just transition, firmly rooted in gender and human rights norms, establishing both the legal basis and the direction for the transformative changes our planet and societies urgently need. In particular, the ‘Guiding Principles for Gender Equality and Human Rights in the Energy Transition’, a collective effort built through online consultations, an in-person workshop and multiple rounds of revision with activists, practitioners and experts from around the world, outline a transformative vision for reshaping global energy systems through a human rights and gender equality lens.

Our work recognises that the climate emergency is both an existential threat and an opportunity to reimagine societies built on social, gender, economic and environmental justice. We ground our advocacy in feminist and intersectional principles, prioritising the agency and perspectives of communities in the Global South who have contributed the least to the climate emergency yet face its most devastating consequences. Central to our approach is the understanding that energy is not merely a commodity but a fundamental human right; essential for dignity, health, education, work and the realisation of countless other rights. We challenge approaches to the energy transition that risk replicating the harmful patterns of fossil fuel extraction and, instead, advocate for transformative policies that ensure human rights and gender equality as central to building climate-resilient societies rooted in dignity, justice and planetary well-being.

What's next?

We will continue to challenge approaches that treat energy transition as merely a technical shift, instead positioning it as an opportunity to reimagine economies and societies rooted in dignity for all, with particular attention to communities in the Global South who have contributed least to the climate emergency yet are most exposed to its worst effects.

We will connect community-level evidence and the lived experiences of those on the frontlines of extractive policies to national reform and global norm-setting, breaking down silos between human rights, gender, and climate movements, and advancing a shared vision that recognises just transitions as not only fundamental to achieving climate-resilient and sustainable societies, but as transformative pathways that advance social and gender equality, redistribute power and resources equitably, and ensure that energy systems serve the public good rather than profit.

We will mainstream rights-based and genderjust transition priorities in key multilateral spaces (particularly, within the Just Transition Work Programme and the to-be-developed Just Transition Mechanism, within the UNFCCC) to guarantee that just transitions are advanced at all levels.

We will also translate our work, through strategic advocacy, into at least two concrete policy wins, whether promoted, adopted, implemented, or scaled, in priority countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Colombia, South Africa, or Kenya), ensuring these policies align with human rights standards, centre gender equality, and reflect the needs and views of affected communities.

We will build momentum for the progressive recognition of the right to sustainable energy to shift dominant narratives away from purely extractive solutions that sideline gendered impacts, community participation, and Global South perspectives.

Economic Justice and Climate Finance

Our work has transformed the global discussion on fiscal policy in a more just, emancipatory and sustainable direction. Our approach has combined both high-level, expert contributions within decisionmaking circles, with bold, impactful work on narrative change with the general public.

We have been instrumental in the inclusion of human rights as a guiding principle of the future United Nations Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation, a multilateral instrument with the potential of raising approx. USD 492 billion per year in public revenues currently foregone to global tax abuse. In the process leading to the ‘Compromiso de Sevilla’ decided at FfD4, we proposed and succeeded in creating a specific human rights workstream within the Civil Society Financing for Development Mechanism, which was critical to ensure that explicit commitments on the matter were included in the negotiating outcome. In a context of cutbacks in multilateral institutions, we have amplified the capacities of technical experts, providing rigorous technical support and leveraging our influence to ensure the enactments of groundbreaking standard-setting instruments, such as the 2025 UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Statement on Fiscal Policy and Human Rights, and the first ex oficio hearing on the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights on Fiscal and Economic Policies to Address Poverty and Structural Inequality, leading to an upcoming thematic resolution on the matter. We have also bridged the silos between multilateral tax discussions and climate finance debates, promoting ambitious financing commitments to increase international and domestic resource mobilisation during COP 28, 29 and 30.

At the regional level, our engagement with fiscal cooperation platforms such as the Platform for Fiscal Cooperation of Latin America and the Caribbean (PTLAC), where we are member of its Civil Society Consultative Council, and the African Anti-IFFs Policy Tracker, for which we participated in the pilot mission in Ivory Coast together with Tax Justice Network Africa (TJNA), have been critical in cementing a growing engagement between tax administrations and ministries of finance with international legal experts, exploring actionable and transformative initiatives, such as the taxation of high-net-worth individuals, beneficial ownership registries and corporate countryby-country reports, to be implemented at the international level.

At the local level, our interventions in fiscal reform debates in Chile, Brazil, Colombia and Nigeria have contributed to shaping legislative outcomes in a more progressive, rights-compliant direction.

As for our leadership in narrative change, we have a measurable track record in delivering tailored, innovative campaigns which have decisively expanded economic justice constituencies by appealing to a broader tent. In Latin America and the Caribbean, we created the ‘Date Cuenta’ campaign, coordinating over 40 organisations across civil society to deliver plain language, innovative messaging connecting progressive fiscal reforms to the financing of health, education and social protection. ‘Date Cuenta’ generated over 55 original campaign messages that were tailored to the realities of seven priority countries (Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru and Honduras) and disseminated in Spanish, Portuguese and English. In doing so, we convened more than 65 online co-creation workshops with partners, coordinating a unified communications strategy which combined digital outreach, press and media coverage, and collaboration with influencers. Ultimately, ‘Date Cuenta’ resulted in more than 60,000 interactions on social media, coverage in major regional and international media outlets, including El País, Deutsche Welle, Bloomberg and France 24, and the participation of at least 63 social media influencers through 58 dedicated publications. In collaboration with Fundación Gabo and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, we also organised a two-day workshop in Bogota with 20 journalists from 13 countries, building a regional network trained in a human rights-based approach to fiscal policy that has since generated published media coverage on outlets such as La Diaria, Ciper, El Diario Ar and Milenio. Through ‘Date Cuenta’ and our regional advocacy, we strengthened civil society engagement in key processes, including the Financing for Development track and FfD4, co-organised highlevel dialogues with states and civil society from Latin America and Africa.

What's next?

We will shape the UN Tax Convention and its Protocols so they embed human rights principles, and we will stay engaged through follow-up processes (including the expected Conference of the Parties) to support effective implementation. We will keep linking tax and climate finance so that new resources mobilised through fiscal cooperation are channelled to adaptation, mitigation, and loss and damage, in line with UNFCCC commitments.

Public Services for Care Societies

We have translated participatory research into accountability and policy outcomes.

In Ivory Coast, our work with Mouvement Ivoirien des Droits Humains and affected communities since 2023 exposed how privatisation and lack of accountability restrict access to quality healthcare. It contributed to the closure of 1,022 illegal private health centres, an executive instrument strengthening the regulation of private hospitals across the country, and the creation of a permanent complaints management committee in healthcare through a bylaw issued by the prefect of Gagnoa. Partners engaged through this process also advanced concrete improvements at facility level: members of the Gagnoa Midwives Association who took part in the participatory action research pooled resources to renovate the neonatal unit of the Regional Hospital, and the Director of the Gagnoa General Hospital launched an action plan to expand services and improve patient reception, with the facility receiving the award for best hospital in the country in 2025.

In Kenya, our research with the Mathare Education Taskforce documented the absence of public schools and the expansion of private provision, evidencing impacts on households and caregivers and strengthening demands for free, quality public education. This work contributed to stronger community agency and collective organisation, alongside ongoing strategies ranging from communications to litigation to secure a public school in the area, some involving GI-ESCR and others led independently.

Across Africa, this work is complemented by a multi-country study examining the human rights implications of austerity in education and health, including how regressive fiscal policies, rising debt burdens and persistent underinvestment undermine the financing and delivery of public services.

In Latin America, from 29 November to 2 December 2021, over a thousand representatives from over one hundred countries, from grassroots movements, advocacy, human rights, and development organisations, feminist movements, trade unions, and other civil society organisations, met in Santiago, Chile, and virtually, to discuss the critical role of public services for our future. Following the meeting, the Santiago Declaration on Public Services was adopted to demand universal access to quality, gender-transformative and equitable public services as the foundation of a fair and just society.

We are currently advancing work on care systems, linking public services and fiscal justice through integrated research, advocacy and communications, including a regional campaign framing care as a collective responsibility requiring sustained public investment.

What's next?

In Ivory Coast, we will evaluate and strengthen the complaints management committee and position it as a replicable model for other health facilities. In Kenya, we will support the Mathare community to co-design a model public school for Mabatini and Ngei wards, grounded in human rights standards. Building on our multi-country austerity study, we will drive national advocacy on financing for education and health: advancing reforms in Ghana; launching a fiscal policy and public services financing agenda in Kenya through the CESCR process and targeted coalition work; and, in Nigeria, using the new tax acts in force since 1 January 2026 to catalyse a national accountability campaign for adequately funded, quality public services. In Latin America, we will amplify locally led care pilots across 8 countries and turn lessons into influence—advancing care policies that strengthen care organisations, protect care workers’ rights, support unpaid caregivers, include disability and family networks, and redistribute care more equitably.