On April 4, UBC announced plans to develop a human rights investment framework, its most notable action on ethical investing since its partial divestment from Apartheid South Africa in 1986. This is a milestone for the coalition of student, staff, and faculty who sustained an ongoing solidarity movement for Palestine, though this statement is too late and does too little, given the atrocious recent re-escalation of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. This March, with 76% of students supporting a UBC student strike for divestment from Palestine and hunger strikes on both campuses, the administration was forced to confront its responsibilities. They could no longer dismiss divestment demands as marginal.
UBC’s April 4 statement is thus a small step toward accountability, but students want action, not just words. We ask how UBC plans to implement its responsible investing commitment. Its next urgent obligation is to announce and enact a human rights framework for institutional partnerships. This includes cutting ties with Israeli academic institutions over the occupation and genocide of Palestinians, just as it cut ties with Russian institutions following the invasion of Ukraine. We further call on UBC to urgently uphold Palestinian rights to sovereignty and self-determination, and affirm the Palestinian rights to life, to resist, and to return as enshrined in international law, and condemn the scholasticide, genocide and illegal occupation of Palestine. Finally, students, staff and faculty’s Charter Rights to protest genocide and illegal occupation are being violated on campuses across Turtle Island. We demand that UBC ensure Anti-Palestinian Racism and repressive policing of dissent and protest have no place on UBC’s campuses.
UBC Finance published the “Update on UBC and UBCIM Responsible Investing Commitments” announcement last Friday.