In France, the campaign to boycott Ahava Dead Sea cosmetics has entered a new phase with boycott, divestment and sanctions advocates taking legal action against the Sephora cosmetics retail chain's contract with the company.

Read more on The Electronic Intifada »

Noura Erakat on Middle East Report:

On April 26, 2010, the student senate at the University of California-Berkeley upheld, by one vote, an executive veto on SB 118—the student body resolution endorsing divestment of university funds from General Electric and United Technologies, two companies that profit from the Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. [ ] The strident response to Berkeley’s resolution from off-campus groups reflects that the BDS movement is being taken more seriously by its opponents than ever before."

Read more on Middle East Report »

From Ynetnews:

British company RedRat announced to Israeli company Disk-In Pro that despite years of cooperation, it would no longer work with the Israeli company because of Israel's policy in the Gaza Strip.

Read more on Ynetnews »

14th June 2010

The BNC (BDS National Committee) issued a powerful statement last week calling for an intensification of BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) actions:

Israel's Freedom Flotilla Massacre underlines the urgency of intensifying BDS: "Occupied Palestine, 08 June 2010 -- In light of Israel's massacre of humanitarian relief workers and activists aboard the Freedom Flotilla on 31 May 2010 and its insistence to continue its illegal siege on Gaza, pressuring Israel to comply with its obligations under international law has become of undeniable urgency. [...] In the words of Nelson Mandela, justice for the people of Palestine has become “the greatest moral issue of our time.” Israel's brutal siege of Gaza is today the most critical and urgent of all Israeli injustices against the Palestinian people. The BNC calls on people of conscience and citizen groups all over the world to intensify BDS campaigns against Israel as the most effective means of ending the siege and holding Israel accountable to international law in the pursuit of a just peace."

Read the full statement (pdf) »

14th June 2010

In the aftermath of the flotilla attack, Palestinian trade unionists are calling on dockworkers to block Israeli trade.

The power that labor holds in the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement is of a different character than that of consumers, NGOs and activists. Because labor has the ability to physically halt commerce with Israel, it preempts the need to rely on the conscience of individual market participants (who are hampered in any case by insufficient information about products' origins).  For this reason, some view trade and dockworkers unions as the most powerful player in the BDS movement.

Read more here: The Electronic Intifada »

11th June 2010

From The Electronic Intifada:

The following release was issued on 2 June 2010 by TESC Divest:

On 2 June 2010, students at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA, made history by passing two resolutions supporting human rights, upholding international law, and promoting a just peace in the Palestine/Israel conflict.

1. The first resolution calls for The Evergreen State College Foundation to divest from companies that profit from Israel's illegal occupation of Palestine, as part of instituting a socially responsible investment policy.

2. The second resolution calls on the College to ban the use of Caterpillar, Inc. equipment from campus.

Read the full press release on The Electronic Intifada »

From The Electronic Intifada:

Israel's bloody attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla on 31 May killing at least nine and injuring dozens of activists carrying humanitarian aid to the blockaded Gaza Strip, has already intensified global actions for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel until it respects international law and human rights, including endorsement by major trade unions in several countries.

Read the full story »

5th June 2010

There is a tendency among defenders of Palestine to think of legal advocacy against corporations involved in Israeli human rights abuses as separate and distinct from the grassroots BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions) movement.

In reality, however, there is a dynamic interrelationship between the two, each enhancing and strengthening the other. International legal mechanisms and norms on the issue of business and human rights are still new and untested and in many cases non-binding. In domestic courts, litigation against corporations for complicity in human rights abuses is in its early stages; corporate law and human rights law developed separately in very different political spheres and contexts.

For this reason, BDS serves a vital role in its capacity to "enforce" international human rights norms on business through consumer boycotts, demonstrations, socially responsible investment, union movements, etc. BDS works to fill a gap in areas where enforcement of such norms through legal mechanisms (in courtrooms, tribunals and other fora) may at present not be attainable.