During the UN Sixty-seventh General Assembly Third Committee meeting held from 24th to 25th October, a United Nations expert called for boycotting businesses that were profiting from Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian lands.

As reported by the Department of Public Information, the expert called for the action to be continued until Israel brought its operations in line with international human rights and humanitarian law.

Richard Falk, the Human Rights Council’s Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, also encouraged civil society to bolster efforts to hold those businesses accountable through legal and political initiatives at the national and international levels. He also drew attention to important developments in international law concerning businesses and human rights, including the United Nations Guiding Principles on Businesses and Human rights and the United Nations Global Compact.

“Businesses should not breach international humanitarian law provisions,” he commented. They might otherwise be subject to criminal or civil liability.

As Falk was preparing his report, he received information from civil societies documenting the involvement of businesses in Israeli settlements. He stated that the companies highlighted in the report constitute a small number of the many which are profiting from the Israeli settlement enterprise. His report also recommended that an advisory opinion should be sought from the International Court of Justice, particularly on the responsibility of businesses in relation to and in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention:

“The scale of Israel’s settlement enterprise, especially the massive financial investment in it, appears to confirm Israel’s intention to retain control over much, if not all, of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Between 500,000 and 600,000 Israeli citizens had already been settled in Palestinian territory, 200,000 of whom had settled in East Jerusalem. In the last year alone, the settler population had increased by over 15,000 people.”

At this point it is unclear if the UN will embrace, and under which course of action, the United Nations expert called for boycotting businesses that are profiting from Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian lands.

“I call on the Government to make sure that implementation of the land consolidation policy is conducted on the basis of the human rights values of consultation and participation,” said the Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, Raquel Rolnik, at the end of her first mission to the country. “Involvement in land consolidation projects must be voluntary and in no way based on coercion.”

Rolnik emphasized that the resettlement of people that is taking place in rural areas, known as “villagization,” and the implementation of urban planning in Kigali, the capital, have to be handled very carefully if they are to consolidate stability and reconciliation in the country.

“Villagization,” also known as imidugudu, was launched in 1994 by the Government to give housing to thousands of returnees after the genocide that same year. The programme now focuses on rural populations, with the intent to bring scattered households closer together in villages.

“As far as housing is concerned, land consolidation has the potential of improving the living conditions of people in planned and organized settlements,” Rolnik said. “There is however the risk of making consolidated lands more attractive to agribusinesses, with the possible consequence of concentration of land ownership in rural areas, and of increased migration to urban settlements.”

During her nine-day mission, Rolnik met with Government officials, as well as with representatives of civil society organizations, independent researchers and academics, and UN agencies. She acknowledged the Government’s “impressive capacity of planning and implementing its policies, reaching out to communities in the most remote areas of the country.” However, she added that “it is my wish that this vision is realized in a way that is sustainable, and does not leave any Rwandan behind.”

Rolnik also visited inhabitants of several neighbourhoods in Kigali and villages in the countryside that are being set up in the context of the villagization policy, and discussed with inhabitants the impacts of this policy on their housing and living conditions.

The Special Rapporteur will present her mission report at a future session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. The Council appoints experts, who work in an independent and unpaid capacity, to examine and report back on a country situation or a specific human rights theme.

In a resolution, the Council “strongly condemned the widespread, systematic and gross violations of human rights, acts of violence, ongoing atrocities and indiscriminate targeting of civilians by the Syrian authorities,” while also condemning the crimes by members of the Government-controlled militia known as the Shabiha. It also reiterated an earlier call for an end to all violence by all parties.

The UN estimates that more than 10,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in Syria and tens of thousands displaced since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began 16 months ago.

In its resolution, the Council also condemned the continued extrajudicial killings, in particular the targeted killing of children, and the fact that they have been subject to arbitrary arrest, detention, torture and ill-treatment.

The resolution was adopted by a majority, with 41 votes in favour, three votes against it, and three abstentions.

The Council deplored the “alarming humanitarian and human rights consequences of the lack of implementation” of the six-point peace plan put forward earlier this year by the Joint Special Envoy of the UN and the League of Arab States for the Syrian Crisis, Kofi Annan; and it called for its urgent implementation by all sides.

The plan calls for an end to violence, access for humanitarian agencies to provide relief to those in need, the release of detainees, the start of inclusive political dialogue, and unrestricted access to the country for the international media.

In addition, the Council expressed deep concern about reports from the Independent Commission of Inquiry – which it had appointed – of serious human rights violations by both Government and opposition forces, and underscored the importance of the recommendations made by the Commission stating that the Syrian people should determine, within an international law framework, the mechanisms to achieve reconciliation, truth and accountability for the gross violations committed against them.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, has previously called for the Security Council to refer the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court (ICC), to ensure accountability for the serious abuses committed by both sides in the conflict.

Israel has decided to bar a U.N. team from entering Israel or the West Bank for a planned investigation of Jewish settlements into how Israeli settlements may be infringing on the rights of the Palestinians, the Foreign Ministry said.

“There was a decision by the foreign ministry to sever work contacts with the organisation,” ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor told AFP, adding that Israel had yet to formally inform the council of its decision.

“This hypocritical organisation has nothing to do with human rights. Its bias and lack of objectivity are obvious and we have no reason to cooperate with it,” he told Israeli public radio.

Israel accuses the council of having a pronounced anti-Israel bias because of what it says is its disproportionate focus on Israeli policy toward the Palestinians.

The resolution was adopted by the 47-member council by 36 votes in favour and 10 abstentions. Only the United States voted against it.

Israel has moved 500,000 Israelis to the West Bank and east Jerusalem since capturing the areas, along with Gaza, in the 1967 Mideast war, according to Al arabiya.

Israel has had uneasy relations with the U.N. for decades, in large part because of the pro-Palestinian majority in the General Assembly, though the United States has used its veto power multiple times to block anti-Israel resolutions in the Security Council. Israel halted its marginal funding to UNESCO in the fall after the U.N. cultural agency recognized Palestine as a member.

Relations with the U.N. were especially acrimonious over a U.N.-commissioned report by South African jurist Richard Goldstone on Israel’s military offensive in Gaza in 2009, aimed at stopping daily rocket attacks. Israel refused to cooperate with Goldstone’s team, though it didn’t bar it from entering.