The sale of heavy machinery made by the British JCB company that was used to demolish Palestinian structures in the West Bank may have been in breach of OECD guidelines, a UK government body says.
A complaint was lodged against JCB by the Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights organization in December 2019, using a UK government complaints system that was created to allow individuals and groups to challenge multinationals seen not to be keeping to the standards set by the OECD, according to The Guardian.
Israel demolishes a house built without a permit in Yatta, in the West Bank on August 11, 2020 (Wisam Hashlamoun/Flash90)
According to those guidelines, multinationals must “seek ways to prevent or mitigate adverse human rights impacts that are directly linked to their business operations, products or services by a business relationship, even if they do not contribute to those impacts.”
The National Contact Point, part of the British Foreign Office, announced on Monday that it believed JCB had a case to answer for, adding that the claims were “material and substantiated.”
According to The Guardian, JCB says it sold the equipment to Comasco, a third-party distributor in Israel, and has no responsibility over what was later done with the machinery.
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