WS-Divest!

To the West Sussex County Council Pensions Committee

We call on the West Sussex County Council Pensions Committee to urgently commit to divesting its Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) investments from companies materially involved in Israel’s military occupation, illegal settlement expansion, and apartheid against Palestinians.

This includes companies identified by AFSC Investigate and Who Profits as being complicit in serious violations of international law, including but not limited to:

• Companies providing infrastructure, technology, equipment, or services that facilitate the occupation of Palestinian territory;
• Companies operating in, servicing, or profiting from illegal Israeli settlements;
• Financial institutions that finance, insure, underwrite, or otherwise enable such activities.

The companies currently identified include: Ford Motor Company, Maersk, Volvo, Siemens, Cisco Systems, Amazon, Alphabet (Google), Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, Barclays, and HSBC.

In addition, we call on the Pensions Committee to:

• Ensure that procurement, contracting, and banking arrangements do not support entities complicit in serious violations of international law.
• Develop and adopt a strengthened ethical investment policy aligned with international legal standards, excluding companies involved in apartheid, illegal occupation, settlements, or war crimes.
• Use its role within the Border to Coast Pensions Partnership to advocate for responsible investment standards and the exclusion of companies implicated in serious breaches of international law.

Please ONLY sign if you live, work or are a student in West Sussex, as the council will otherwise disqualify your signature.

Illustrative Photo by Nikolas Gannon on Unsplash