Dr Fairleigh Evelyn Gilmour and Brandon Johnstone, on behalf of Staff for Palestine

Recently, students at the University of Otago were in the news for protesting at the Clocktower, demanding that the University adopt Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS). This student activism was just the latest in staff and student efforts to demand the University adopt a more ethical investment and procurement policy. In July this year, an open letter calling for the University of Otago to endorse the BDS movement was sent to Grant Robertson, signed by 947 staff, students, and alumni. The BDS movement aims to pressure Israel to comply with International law and asks universities to withdraw investments from the State of Israel and all Israeli and international companies that sustain Israeli apartheid. The response received from the Vice Chancellor stated that “to the best of our knowledge the University does not have any financial links with Israel”.

The University must demonstrate ethical and transparent decision making in the context of the violence and the breaches of international law in Gaza and the West Bank. The University, as a public institution, has a responsibility to respect human rights. As a corporate entity, it is required to take proactive and ongoing steps to identify and respond to the human rights impacts of its investments (as stated in the UN Guiding Principles) as well as a responsibility to ensure that its financial decisions demonstrate respect for international law (including the Genocide Convention, and the decisions made by the International Court of Justice). The International Court of Justice ruled in July this year that not only was the Israeli occupation illegal but that all states are under an obligation not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by Israel’s illegal presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. In this context, as a publicly-funded institution, there are serious legal implications if the University fails to adopt ethical business practices that ensure it is not implicated in this illegal occupation. 

Yet despite the onus being on the University to be proactive and transparent in such situations, the University has not yet provided evidence that it does not invest in Israeli bonds, weapons manufacturers, or businesses that support the illegal occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. If the University really has no genocide-profiteering investments in Israel, they need to provide evidence, because “to the best of our knowledge” allows the University to claim innocence without providing any evidence. The need to properly examine and evidence their investments is particularly important for the University given that other tertiary institutions in this country (including Massey and Victoria University) have hidden their unethical investments in trusts which are not discoverable via Official Information Act requests.

We do know that the University of Otago uses UniSaver Ltd., administered by Mercer (N.Z.) Ltd., as its superannuation investment fund manager. UniSaver is promoted as a “great superannuation option” and a “key employee benefit for staff” by the University, yet it is one of the most unethical superannuation funds in the country. UniSaver invests in three Israeli banks which support illegal settlements in the West Bank, in Israeli government bonds, and in Elbit Systems – which helped to construct the apartheid wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, manufactures weapons and technology that are carrying out the ongoing genocide, and markets its weapons as being battle-tested on Palestinian bodies. UniSaver also invests in several companies named by the UN High Commissioner as being involved in illegal settlements and ethnic cleansing, including Expedia, Motorola, and General Mills. When hundreds of members directly asked UniSaver to divest, the response was that we must “agree to disagree”.

Finally, the University of Otago purchases technology from companies that control the movement and manage surveillance of Palestinians under occupation. One particularly egregious example is Hewlett-Packard (HP), utilised in the University’s new digital workspace rollout – approximately 3000 devices are currently being rolled out. HP provides computer hardware to the Israeli army and maintains data centres through their servers for the Israeli police that are integral to the maintenance of Israel’s racial segregation and apartheid. This technology has no place in an educational institution committed to the rule of law.

Given the gravity of the situation in Gaza (where the International Court of Justice has ruled that the Palestinian people’s right to protection from genocide is at real risk of irreparable damage) and the decades-long and illegal occupation of the West Bank, we are calling on the University to adopt a more ethical approach in terms of its actions as a corporate entity and as a public institution. It is well within the University’s capacity to investigate and disclose its investments, to put pressure on UniSaver to divest, and to choose IT suppliers who are not actively involved in practices that violate international law.

The University can best navigate its corporate and public roles by adopting an ethical investment policy that supports human rights and international law. It is only through such a policy that the University can effectively respond not only to the current atrocities unfolding in Palestine, but to all future global conflicts as well. Before the university can get serious about its role as the “critic and conscience” of society, it must first get its own house in order.