A United Kingdom (UK) government investigation has allowed a complaint to proceed that alleges top accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) ignored payments to terrorists when it audited the Palestinian Authority (PA). Major donors, like the United States, United Kingdom, and World Bank, rely on such audits to ensure millions of taxpayer dollars are not diverted to fund terrorism and other human rights abuses abroad. The UK government decision follows an eighteen-month investigation responding to a December 2016 complaint filed by UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) with the UK National Contact Point for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises. The OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises (the Guidelines), first adopted in 1976, set principles for responsible business, including standards for human rights and bribery prevention. All forty-seven adhering countries are required to maintain a complaint mechanism, known as the National Contact Point (NCP), allowing for third-parties to allege Guideline violations by companies headquartered domestically. UKLFI filed the complaint against PwC with the UK’s NCP, which is a part of the UK’s Department of International Trade. UKLFI is a nonprofit formed in 2011 that employs advocacy, legal research, and campaigning to support Israel. Several years ago, UKLFI became concerned about the “Amended Palestinian Prisoners Law No. 19 (2004),” which it claims not only authorizes the PA to pay the salaries of terrorists in Israeli prisons, “but [holds] that the more serious the crime, the greater the rewards for the prisoners while serving their sentence and on their release.” Knowing that the PA receives aid from nations and international organizations around the world, UKLFI worried that taxpayer dollars meant to improve the Palestinians quality of life, were actually funding violence. Per the UK Minister of State for International Development, UK’s aid to the Palestinians “is subject to annual, independent financial audit.” UKLFI wanted to verify that these audits were comprehensive, accurate, and demonstrated that the PA was not misusing donations from the global community. Thus, the UKLFI reached out to PA donors and received “a letter of confirmation from a donor client that PwC had a role in managing and auditing PA’s accounts.” Further, “UKLFI also obtained evidence from several sources in the public domain which established PwC’s historical work with the PA.” However, when UKLFI approached PwC for access to files related to their audits of the PA, PwC declined, “citing concerns over issues of client confidentiality.” Without any further recourse, UKLFI filed its complaint with UK’s NCP stating, “Because of the unwillingness of PwC to subject its audit reports to public scrutiny, it is unclear whether the funds from donors who rely on PWC’s guidance are directly funding the incitement of terrorism, or whether such funds, given uncritically, are liberating other resources that the PA can devote to the incitement of terrorism.” UKLFI further alleged that by “failing to raise concerns about PA spending aid money on salaries for terrorists and on glorifying terrorism,” PwC breached Chapter II, III, and IV of the Guidelines. UKLFI asserted these violations infringed the human rights of victims of terror attacks, Palestinian citizens, and taxpayers in donor countries to the PA. In response, PwC claimed it was not required to examine potential payments to terrorists because it was outside the scope of its agreement with the PA. The NCP dismissed this argument, noting its “implication that PwC should not be held accountable to a standard that it was not aware of. However, the Guidelines exist to promote an overall standard of good practice.” While the NCP investigation does not reach any final conclusions as to whether PwC acted inconsistently with the Guidelines, international human rights lawyer Jacob Turner, co-author of the complaint and former lecturer at Oxford University, asserted the mere ruling that the allegations are material and could be substantiated “shows auditors…can’t just turn a blind eye to human rights abuses being committed by or facilitated by the entities which they are auditing.” The UK NCP will ask UKLFI and PwC if they are willing to engage in facilitated mediation to resolve UKLFI’s concerns. While UKLFI has publicly expressed willingness to participate in mediation, PwC has not indicated whether it intends to participate. If mediation is successful, the UK NCP will issue a Final Statement without determining whether PwC breached the Guidelines. If mediation does not occur or fails to resolve UKLFI’s grievances, the UK NCP will conduct a separate examination and issue a Final Statement as to whether PwC acted inconsistently with the Guidelines. As the Guidelines are technically non-binding, there is no formal penalty associated with the finding of a breach. Nevertheless, the NCP can recommend actions to the breaching company and the public relations effect of an alleged Guideline breach is often enough to force a company to change its behavior—as seen in 2014, when a mining company, after facing an NCP complaint, abandoned a project in the Congo which threatened a World Heritage Site.
Anti-Labour Demonstration (Getty) As recently reported by the Algemeiner, Jewish students in the United Kingdom are blaming the British Labour Party’s recent spate of anti-Semitic statements and actions on the rise in campus anti-Jewish discrimination in the England. The British Labour Party, who recently promised to settle the “vast majority” of their outstanding anti-Semitism accusations by July, has been embroiled in controversy over anti-Jewish sentiment from all levels of their party’s leadership. Jeremy Corbyn, the head of the Labour party, recently deleted his Facebook page in response to accusations that he had been a member of at least five Facebook groups which regularly post anti-Semitic content. The prevalence of anti-Semitism in mainstream British politics has led Jewish students to now question which schools they can apply to and still feel safe. Jewish high school students in Manchester relayed to the “Newsbeat” radio show that they are avoiding applying to certain universities after hearing of anti-Semitic incidents on their campuses. The president of the Union of Jewish Students, Josh Holt, stated that the increased hostility some Jewish students have reported feeling on campus was clearly linked to antisemitism in the Labour party. “You are seeing more anti-Semitic incidents,” he said, “because it is more permissible.” Corbyn’s leadership in the party has been marred for the last several years by accusations of anti-Israelism and anti-Semitism, however recently the accusations have multiplied significantly. Several Labour council candidates and potential candidates were found to have made anti-Semitic comments relating to Israel and Jews, as well as homophobic and racist tweets. These comments included referring to Israeli soldiers as “ZioNazi storm troopers,” as well as assertions that “Hitler was Jewish.” Adding fuel to the fire, Corbyn recently announced that, if elected, his government would recognize a Palestinian State. Labour and its leadership are aware of the crisis of anti-Semitism within their ranks, but have thus far failed to address it adequately. Corbyn’s attempts to initially stymie the bad press blew up in his face when he attended a Passover Seder hosted by Jewdas, a fringe anti-Israel Jewish group, whose haggadah implored the attending guests to “take a moment to consider how sh*t the State of Israel is in general and particularly at the moment.” The haggadah is a traditional Jewish text recited at the Seder on the first two nights of Passover. More recently, the British Labour Party employed Gordan Nardell to probe the anti-Semitism cases within the party. Nardell, however, has been showed to have links to the party’s hard left anti-Israel elements. Not all elements of the Labour party are exacerbating this situation. Melantha Chittenden, the outgoing national chair of Labour students, begged the party to reflect on these accusations, asking that there be a “active condemnation and also action plans coming from the party of what we’re going to do.” Corbyn and the party leadership have thus far only demonstrated that they are capable of making the situation worse.
Image taken from Wikimedia Commons On July 6th, South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster signed into law the state’s new budget, which included an anti-Semitism definition bill. In doing so, South Carolina became the first state to officially adopt a definition of anti-Semitism into law. This move follows an April 2018 vote in the South Carolina General Assembly to pass this anti-Semitism definition legislation. The measure passed the State Senate by a vote of 37-4 and the State House of Representatives by a vote of 116-2, and was accompanied at the time by Governor McMaster’s endorsement. The new law will allow South Carolina to combat instances of anti-Semitism by providing a clear standard for recognizing and classifying anti-Semitism. Thus far, at least thirty-one countries around the world have adopted a definition of anti-Semitism authored by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. South Carolina’s definition is substantially similar to that one.