Human Rights Watch has called on the European Commission to ban trade between the European Union and settlements in occupied territories around the world, after it signed the European Citizens Initiative.
"Illegal settlements steal local people's land, resources, and livelihoods," said Bruno Stagno, advocacy chief at Human Rights Watch. "No country should contribute to the circulation of goods produced from land theft, displacement, and discrimination."
The citizen-led initiative, registered with the European Commission in September 2021 and starting on February 20, 2022, calls for the adoption of legislation to prevent products manufactured in illegal settlements from entering the EU market, and to ban EU exports to those settlements.
The organization pointed out that "the transfer of the civilian population under the umbrella of an occupying power to a militarily occupied territory violates the Fourth Geneva Convention, and is a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court."
The trade in materials produced in settlements within occupied territories also helps perpetuate these violations of international humanitarian law.
It entrenches human rights violations that often result from settlement, such as land confiscation, exploitation of natural resources, displacement and discrimination against the local population.
Human Rights Watch said that the EU should also ban trade that contributes to the illegal extraction of resources in the occupied territories, which also violates international humanitarian law.
Human Rights Watch joins more than 100 civil society organizations, grassroots movements, unions, and politicians in supporting the initiative.
The initiative uses a provision designed to give European citizens the ability to direct the European Commission to consider proposed legislative action.
If the initiative collects one million signatures, the commission will be legally obligated to consider the initiative to ban trade in settlement goods.
In order to comply with their obligations under the Geneva Conventions to ensure respect for international humanitarian law, the European Union and member states should ban the settlement trade, Human Rights Watch said, noting that the illegality of settlements under international humanitarian law is well-established and stems in part from their close association with discrimination and economic harm to local populations.
Human Rights Watch has documented this phenomenon in the occupied Palestinian territory, where, for decades, Israeli authorities have imposed harsh military rule on millions of Palestinians while managing the lives of hundreds of thousands of Israeli Jewish settlers in accordance with Israeli civil law.
The Israeli occupation authorities confiscated more than two million dunams (two thousand square kilometers) of Palestinian land to establish and maintain the settlement project.
Israeli authorities have made Palestinians live in dozens of separate enclaves, demolished thousands of Palestinian homes, and imposed sweeping restrictions on the freedom of movement and basic civil rights of millions, in addition to other serious violations.
According to Human Rights Watch, such systematic repression is at the heart of Israel's two crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution, as documented by Rights Watch and several Palestinian, Israeli and international human rights organizations.