DR RAMZY BAROUD
Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in occupied Palestine, stands as a testament to the notion of speaking truth to power. This ‘power’ is not solely embodied by Israel or even the US, but by an international community whose collective relevance has tragically failed to stem the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
Her latest report, ‘From Economy of Occupation to Economy of Genocide,’ submitted to the UN Human Rights Council last week, marks a seismic intervention. It unflinchingly names and implicates companies that have not only allowed Israel to sustain its war and genocide against Palestinians, but also confronts those who have remained silent in the face of this unfolding horror.
Albanese’s ‘Economy of Genocide’ is far more than an academic exercise or a mere moral statement in a world whose collective conscience is being brutally tested in Gaza. The report is significant for multiple interlocking reasons. Crucially, it offers practical pathways to accountability that transcend diplomatic and legal rhetoric. It also presents a novel approach to international law, positioning it not as a delicate political balancing act, but as a potent tool to confront complicity in war crimes and expose the profound failures of the existing international mechanisms in Gaza.
There is vital context that is necessary to understand the significance of this report, which is considered a searing indictment of direct corporate involvement, not only in the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza but Israel’s overall settler-colonial project.
In February 2020, following years of delay, the UN Human Rights Council released a database that listed 112 companies involved in business activities within illegal Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territories. The database exposed several corporate giants for helping Israel maintain its military occupation and apartheid.
This was particularly earth-shattering considering the UN’s consistent failure to rein in Israel or hold accountable those who sustain its war crimes in Palestine. The publication of the database was an important step that allowed civil societies to mobilize around a specific set of priorities, thus pressuring corporations and individual governments to take morally guided positions. The effectiveness of that strategy was clearly detected through the exaggerated and angry reactions of the US and Israel. The US said it was an attempt by ‘the discredited’ council ‘to fuel economic retaliation,’while Israel called it a ‘shameful capitulation’ to pressure.
The Israeli war on Gaza, starting on Oct. 7, 2023, however, serves as a stark reminder of the utter failure of all existing UN mechanisms to achieve even the most modest expectations of feeding a starving population during a time of genocide. Tellingly, this was the same conclusion offered by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who, in September 2024, stated that the world had ‘failed the people of Gaza.’
The Israeli war on Gaza serves as a stark reminder of the utter failure of all existing UN mechanisms.
This failure continued for many more months and was highlighted by the UN’s inability to even manage aid distribution in the Strip, with Israel and the US instead entrusting the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a violent, mercenary-run apparatus that has killed and wounded thousands of Palestinians. Albanese herself, of course, had already reached a similar conclusion when, in November 2023, she confronted the international community for ‘epically failing’ to stop the war.
Albanese’s new report goes a step further, this time appealing to the whole of humanity to take a moral stance and confront those that have made the genocide possible. ‘Commercial endeavors enabling and profiting from the obliteration of innocent people’s lives must cease,’ the report declares, pointedly demanding that ‘corporate entities must refuse to be complicit in human rights violations and international crimes or be held to account.’
In the report, the categories of complicity in the genocide are divided into arms manufacturers, tech firms, building and construction companies, extractive and service industries, banks, pension funds, insurers, universities, and charities. Their collective technological know-how, machinery and data collection has allowed Israel to kill, to date, more than 57,000 and wound 134,000 in Gaza, while also maintaining its apartheid regime in the West Bank.
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