Letter to University Court on divestment
17 September 2024
Dear Court members,
We write as a wide coalition of concerned staff and students about a matter of urgent concern to our University community.
We strongly believe that the University’s responsible investment (RI) policy is not fit for purpose and needs urgent reform. We need a RI policy that explicitly addresses the risks of global conflicts, that ensures the University avoids complicity in violations of international law, and that is fully aligned with University values. In the upcoming meeting of University Court on 7 October, you have the responsibility to take crucial decisions that will shape the University’s RI policy framework for the future. We urge you to take four important actions:
1. Reform our RI Policy: The current RI policy pays lip service to protecting human rights, but does not actually address violations of international law, like war crimes and genocide. It is thus hopelessly ill-equipped to act ‘responsibly’ in relation to geopolitical conflicts, including in Gaza. Adherence to the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights framework is vital to strengthening the University’s commitment to human rights. Further, the University must commit to respecting core principes of international law in order to avoid complicity in genocide and war crimes. Vague commitments to act ‘responsibly’ are not good enough. We need action.
2. Change RI oversight and governance: We need a new independent body that has effective oversight over University investment activity to ensure it is ethical, human rights compliant, and not complicit in violations of international law. This oversight body needs real decision-making powers to do ethical review and take divestment decisions, rather than being merely advisory. To do this properly, it needs access to the currently opaque workings of the University Investment Committee. Effective oversight and ethical review means this body must be independent and requires experts from law and politics, and representation of staff and students.
3. Make all University investments ‘responsible’: Our RI policy must apply to all University investments (direct and indirect) across all asset classes. Limiting oversight to the University’s ‘direct’ investments would mean that RI policy is just window dressing. Such a limitation would go against the clearly expressed demand of University students and staff for leadership on divestment. We need comprehensive and robust action.
4. Immediately divest from Amazon and Alphabet (Google): We welcome the fact that at its June meeting, the Court extended its pause on additional share purchases in Amazon and Alphabet, due to the strong concerns expressed by students and staff about the involvement of the two companies in human rights violations in Gaza. We note that since your last meeting, unequivocal evidence has emerged that these two companies in which the University directly invests are providing assistance to the Israeli military’s targeting operations in Gaza through their AI and cloud services. In September 2024, Human Rights Watch found that the digital tools that receive cloud support from these companies ‘appear to rely on faulty data and inexact approximations to inform military actions in ways that could contravene Israel's obligations under international humanitarian law, in particular the rules of distinction and precaution’ with deadly consequences for civilians. Given the new evidence, it is clear that the two companies are directly contributing to Israel’s human rights breaches in Gaza. Court now has all the necessary elements and information to prevent the continuation of our complicity with ongoing violations of international law in Gaza, and mandate the University to urgently sell all its Amazon and Alphabet holdings.
In your forthcoming meeting, we urge you to act boldly to create a RI policy that is fit for the 21st century. Our University’s RI policy needs to ensure that all University investments are ‘responsible’ and that they are not involved in violations of international law. For this, we need a new ethical oversight body that has real powers.
Signed:
UCU Edinburgh branch committee
