Academic

Developing a Coherent Transnational Jurisprudence of Ethical Investing: The Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund Ethics Council Model Part XIII

This Blog Essay site devotes every February to a series of integrated but short essays on a single theme.  The Ruminations Series in 2009 produced a series of aphoristic (?????????) essays, meant to provoke thought rather than explain it. The hope was that, built up on each other, the series would provide a matrix of thoughts that together might lead the reader in new directions. Ruminations continue to be produced form time to time.  For 2010, this site introduced a new series--Business and Human Rights.  The series took as its starting point the issues and questions raised by John Ruggie, the United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) on business and human rights, in a global online forum. 

For 2011, this site introduces a new series of integrated essays--Developing a Coherent Transnational Jurisprudence of Ethical Investing: The Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund Ethics Council Model.  The object of this series to to consider the work of the Ethics Council of the Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund.  The thesis of this series is this:  The Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund (NSWF ) investment program is grounded in the application of a set of Ethical Guidelines adopted by the Storting (the Norwegian Legislature) and enforced through an Ethics Council charged with determining whether a company should be excluded from investment by the NSWF.  The work of the Ethics Council has produced the beginnings of a coherent jurisprudence of ethics for corporate investment.  That jurisprudence may contribute significantly both to the development of transnational social norm standards and  affect the way domestic corporate law is understood. This is Part II of the series.

There is one principal determination:
 
03.09.2009 Elbit Systems Ltd
The press release from the Ministry of Finance
The recommendation from the Council on Ethics

 To enter into the details of the many issues of international law that have been raised with
regard to the construction of the separation barrier would be outside the Council on Ethics? mandate. In this context the Council will refer to the advisory opinion from the ICJ and the report from the UN Special Rapporteur, which both accept that the construction of the separation barrier along the chosen route is illegal. Israel?s Supreme Court has also
established that to the extent its purpose is to annex occupied territory, the separation barrier is not legal. The Council on Ethics is aware that the Israeli government deems the barrier a necessary and temporary measure to prevent terror attacks and that the considerations regarding the necessity of the barrier must carry more weight than the considerations vis-à-vis the disadvantages it entails. The Council on Ethics? has not made an assessment of Israel?s right and duty to protect its citizens against terror attacks. A state?s construction of fences or other control mechanisms on its own territory cannot, in principle, be considered illegal or unethical. Neither does the ICJ?s advisory opinion concern the sections of the separation barrier that are located inside Israeli territory. Israel, however, has chosen to build a separation barrier of whose extension nearly 90% is located in areas occupied by Israel. This, and the humanitarian problems that the choice of the route causes, constitute the problematic aspects of the separation barrier.  (Elbit, pg. 8).

03.09.2009 Elbit Systems Ltd

Full post as published by Law at the End of the Day on February 13, 2011 (boomark / email).