Summary
- Any aid or assistance or other forms of involvement (including profiting) by energy companies in Israel’s continuing international crimes is illegal and constitutes complicity.
- All the activities performed by companies involved in Israel’s energy sector (exploration, extraction, import, export, etc.) risk complicity in Israel’s grave violations of international law.
- The relationships, activities, goods, and/or services of energy companies involved in operations with Israel or in Israel or the occupied Palestinian territory may trigger corporate civil and criminal responsibility and/or civil and criminal responsibility of executives, board members, and/or employees, for their involvement in international crimes.
- The conduct of corporate entities and/or their executives, board members, or employees may be criminally investigated and prosecuted by national courts, the International Criminal Court, by other States under the principle of universal jurisdiction, or by any future international criminal tribunal competent to address such complicity.
- In addition to potential criminal liability, energy companies may also face proceedings before courts competent under their respective national jurisdictions for breaches of fiduciary duties under domestic law — and, where applicable, for failures to exercise due diligence or a duty of care under international law — when their decisions contribute to serious human rights violations or to internationally wrongful acts by states, including those contrary to the purposes and principles of international law as embodied in the UN Charter.
- Energy companies that continue their activities and relationships with Israel are particularly at a great risk of indirect and/or direct complicity in grave international crimes committed by Israel, as described below, including:
- Genocide;
- Apartheid and racial segregation;
- Maintenance of unlawful occupation, and therefore a continuing crime of aggression under the Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), and other associated human rights violations; and
- Other war crimes, crimes against humanity, and grave human rights violations.