By Fauve Kurnadi

If UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese’s recent report, “From Economy of Occupation to Economy of Genocide”,[i] hasn’t already reached business executives around the world, it needs to.

Presented to the Human Rights Council in June 2025, the report delivers a sobering assessment of the corporate infrastructure sustaining Israel’s prolonged occupation of the Palestinian territories. It argues that certain economic and commercial activities, including those involving multinational corporations and financial institutions, have contributed to or benefitted from occupation, genocide, and other serious violations of international law, including war crimes.

These are complex legal claims, but their implications for business are clear: in conflict-affected and high-risk areas (CAHRAs), companies are not bystanders and their business activities do not take place in a vacuum. Executives must understand the obligations and growing expectations around responsible business conduct, including respect for international humanitarian law (IHL) and robust heightened human rights due diligence (hHRDD) practices.

While the report focuses on the occupied Palestinian territories, its relevance extends far beyond. From Western Sahara to Ukraine, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to Myanmar and Sudan, companies face heightened risks when operating in, or when connected to, situations of belligerent occupation or armed conflict.

Failing to act responsibly is no longer just a reputational risk – although it clearly is, as nearly 50 corporate actors are named in the report, alongside their parent companies, subsidiaries, partners, and others – it is quickly becoming a legal and operational one too.

The report in brief

The Special Rapporteur’s report offers a detailed examination of corporate involvement in the occupied Palestinian territories, highlighting the role of business entities in enabling or benefiting from structural violations of international law. These include the unlawful occupation and annexation of territory, the denial of the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination, and, most gravely, conduct that the Special Rapporteur argues meets the threshold for the crimes of apartheid and genocide.

The report also links certain corporate activities to serious human rights abuses and violations of IHL, including discrimination, forced displacement, pillage, and starvation. Its findings suggest that these activities help sustain a system that entrenches and normalises serious breaches of international law. Of particular relevance to the business community are observations about activities such as:

• Supplying and transporting weapons, and their components and parts, and dual-use goods;
• Providing materials and services for the construction and maintenance of settlements;
• Operating or investing in industrial zones located in occupied territories;
• Facilitating or profiting from the extraction of natural resources, including through quarries and agriculture;
• Supplying digital surveillance technologies or systems used in population control and movement restrictions;
• Trading in goods that are produced in settlements.

While the long-term legal and policy impacts of this report remain to be seen, the Special Rapporteur’s recommendations are significant. The report includes calls for: States to impose sanctions and a full arms embargo, the suspension of trade and investment agreements, and the investigation and potential prosecution of corporate executives or entities found to be complicit in serious violations of international law.

Why this matters for business leaders

For senior executives, the implications of these findings are serious and far-reaching – not only for activities connected to Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories, but for business conduct connected to any occupation or armed conflict around the world.

The legal principles and due diligence expectations outlined in the UN report are part of an established body of international law, and evolving soft-law standards, that apply equally to any company operating in these contexts. For example, companies engaged in resource extraction in Western Sahara or the DRC, financial services in occupied Crimea, or agricultural investments in Somalia or Colombia face similarly complex legal and ethical landscapes.

Beyond a moral obligation to help protect the lives and livelihoods of individuals living in CAHRAs, there are three compelling reasons why business should pay attention:

• Reputational risk: Investors, consumers, and civil society are increasingly scrutinising business conduct through an ethical lens. Companies that fall short of these expectations risk long-term damage to trust and credibility among key stakeholders.
• Operational risk: Projects linked to armed conflict, or disputed or occupied territory, may be subject to sanctions, boycotts, or divestment campaigns, which can lead to operational and supply chain disruptions. These environments can also create instability for local partnerships, and raise security and safety concerns for personnel, assets and supply chains.
• Legal risk: Corporate actors are, in certain circumstances, bound by IHL, as outlined below. This means that companies and the people who work for them may face liability under domestic or international criminal law for contributing to violations. There is growing legal precedent and increasing calls for the prosecution of corporate entities for their complicity in atrocity crimes, including in national courts under universal jurisdiction laws.

What is International Humanitarian Law and how is it relevant?

Included in the report is an overview of the legal framework that governs corporate responsibility in the occupied Palestinian territories under international law. Central to this framework is IHL, otherwise known as the laws of war.

IHL is the set of rules which seeks to regulate conduct during armed conflict and occupation. Its primary aim is to protect people who are not, or are no longer, taking part in hostilities – such as civilians, wounded soldiers, and prisoners of war – and to place limits on the weapons, tactics, and strategies used in warfare.

While governments and armed groups are the primary duty-bearers under IHL, its significance is often underestimated in the business world. Crucially, IHL is not a voluntary or opt-in standard. It is legally binding and imposes clear prohibitions and obligations on all individuals and entities connected to conflict, including companies. As such, where business activities are linked to armed conflict or occupation, IHL must be treated as part of the broader risk and compliance landscape.

The range of business activities that may trigger IHL responsibilities is too extensive to list exhaustively, but common examples include:

• Use of security providers: Contracting public, private, or non-state security actors to protect personnel or assets in conflict-affected areas.
• Dealings with public or private property: Using, acquiring, or profiting from property (including land and natural resources) without lawful authority, which risks constituting the war crime of pillage.
• Provision of goods/services: Supplying items such as food, water, fuel, ICT, construction materials, or logistics that may support military efforts.
• Operations near or involving conflict actors: Entering into partnerships, investments, or supply chain relationships with entities that are tied to the conflict.
• Workforce-related risks: Employing or relying on forced labour, for instance involving children or detainees.
• Activities impacting civilians: Contributing to or facilitating forced displacement, disrupting or misusing essential supplies, or impeding humanitarian relief operations.
• Involvement in arms or dual-use goods trade: Supplying weapons or dual-use items where there is reason to believe they may be used to commit IHL violations.

Where a company’s activities create legal exposure under IHL, this liability may extend not only to the business entity itself but also to individual executives, directors, and employees, particularly if there is evidence of knowledge, intent, or wilful blindness. Around the world, there are very real examples of this. In an ongoing case against an oil company, two former senior executives have been formally indicted by Swedish prosecutors for their alleged complicity in war crimes. The charges relate to crimes committed in Sudan between 1999 and 2003, in connection with the company’s oil exploration in areas where military operations were used to secure land access, resulting in large-scale civilian harm and displacement. These legal proceedings, often initiated under the principle of universal jurisdiction in national courts, demonstrate that companies and individuals may be held accountable for their role in enabling violations, even if they did not directly perpetrate them.

In the context of the occupied Palestinian territories, the UN has long affirmed that Israeli settlements in the West Bank violate IHL – a position first articulated close to 50 years ago and reaffirmed in subsequent UN resolutions. The International Court of Justice has also confirmed this view in its 2004 and 2024 Advisory Opinions.[ii] The UN report underscores that companies and individuals involved in building, servicing, or profiting from these settlements may also face serious legal consequences – a warning that reflects broader principles of corporate responsibility under IHL and not an isolated exception.

Heightened human rights due diligence: A business imperative

The report makes clear that conventional due diligence policies and processes have been insufficient or inadequately conducted in this context. As the Special Rapporteur states, ‘Had proper human rights due diligence been undertaken, corporate entities would have long ago disengaged from Israeli occupation.’ Of course, not all CAHRA contexts will warrant corporate disengagement. In many situations, the presence of responsible companies can provide important economic and social value.

What is important here is how “proper human rights due diligence” is understood. It is now widely accepted – and increasingly expected under the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs)[iii] – that companies operating in CAHRAs must carry out hHRDD. This demands a distinct process, designed to assess and address the specific risks associated with doing business in unstable or high-risk environments.

At its core, hHRDD is a stepwise process of analysis, action planning, implementation, and disclosure. It aims to address adverse impacts a company might have on human rights and conflict dynamics, not only within direct operations but across value chains, partnerships, and business relationships. It requires a comprehensive analysis of two critical issues:

1. The risk of a company’s adverse impacts on the conflict; and
2. The heightened risk of a company’s adverse impacts on human rights.

However, fundamental to this conflict-specific version of due diligence is respect for IHL – a requirement that can be integrated alongside hHRDD, but is often overlooked by companies. This integrated process can be thought of as “IHL-informed due diligence”, which builds on hHRDD by also requiring:

• The identification of whether a company’s activities are sufficiently connected to armed conflict or occupation (thereby triggering IHL obligations); and
• An assessment of whether those activities contribute to, or benefit from, violations of IHL.

Aligning business conduct with IHL in this way should not be seen merely as good, ethical behaviour, but as a baseline for responsible conduct and investment in conflict-affected areas.

How business leaders can respond

Executives have a responsibility – and opportunity – to shape how their companies respond to the kinds of complex global challenges highlighted in the UN report. Whether a business is directly operating in a CAHRA, or indirectly linked through suppliers or customers, there are concrete steps that can be taken today to mitigate risk and demonstrate responsible leadership:

1. Commission a conflict-specific risk assessment: Engage legal and conflict experts, or build internal capacity, to assess whether the company’s activities are connected to armed conflict or occupation. This includes evaluating exposure across value chains, partnerships, and financing arrangements, and identifying applicable IHL obligations.
2. Integrate IHL into internal processes and decision making: Ensure that IHL risks and responsibilities are embedded across internal policies, governance processes, risk management strategies, and capacity building.
3. Develop hHRDD protocols: Institutionalise due diligence processes tailored to CAHRAs, in line with the UNGPs and other emerging standards in the context of internal, company-wide governance processes.
4. Know when to stay or walk away: Where company activities are found to be linked to serious violations of IHL or human rights abuses, responsible suspension or disengagement may be the only viable option. Develop and apply a clearly defined “entry-stay-exit” decision-making framework to guide investment, contracting, and operations in CAHRAs.

Conclusion

The UN report is more than a human rights document, it serves as a warning to companies: in CAHRAs, businesses cannot claim to be neutral. The decisions executives make about where to invest, who to partner with, and how to operate have real-world consequences.

Today, responsible business conduct demands much more than public statements about human rights commitments or even conventional human rights due diligence. It requires legal literacy and conflict-specific expertise, principled decision-making, and courageous leadership. As the international community continues to respond to the report’s findings, companies must ask themselves: are we building long-term value or enabling harm, and what is the cost of doing nothing?

The views expressed here are those of the author and do not reflect the position or policies of TrustWorks Global. With appreciation to Josie Lianna Kaye and Claude Voillat for their insightful comments on earlier versions of this piece.