Arms Trade Experts In Support of UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese’s Report to the United Nations: “From Economy of Occupation to Economy of Genocide”

Over twenty of the world’s leading arms trade experts, including Reaching Critical Will's Director Ray Acheson, issued a statement in support of UN Special Rapporteur, Francesca Albanese, and specifically her recent report to the United Nations “From Economy of Occupation to Economy of Genocide” which reveals those corporations complicit in the genocide in Gaza and analyses the nature and consequences of this complicity.

16 September 2025

The trade in weapons is described as a business that counts its profits in billions while its losses are measured in human lives. Nowhere has this been more starkly seen than during the genocide being perpetrated in Gaza with the active participation of Western governments and their weapons manufacturers, the tech companies and assorted other private corporations. These manufacturers have experienced a significant rise in profits and share prices, while tens of thousands of Palestinians have been slaughtered using their products.

The UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, Francesca Albanese, has published a report on the role of companies in the genocide. “From Economy of Occupation to Economy of Genocide” is a forensic, detailed, accurate and extremely important report which lays bare corporate complicity in the ongoing genocide.

It identifies the complicit traditional weapons manufacturers, as well as the technology companies whose involvement in warfare generally, and specifically surveillance and targeting, has grown exponentially: while Israeli companies Elbit Systems and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) feature prominently, so too do Western arms behemoths, Lockheed Martin and the Anglo-Italian company Leonardo, along with many others who provide the military matériel that has caused the killing fields of Gaza. In addition, as the report makes clear, these companies allow their products to be ‘battle-tested’ in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), and base their subsequent marketing strategies on the devastating harm caused. It also points to the web of intermediaries who make this trade in weapons possible, from the legal, auditing and consulting firms, and the arms dealers, agents and brokers to the robotics suppliers like Japanese FANUC Corporation, and logistics providers like A.P. Moller – Maersk A/S.

Tech companies especially have become central to conflict. In the context of Gaza, Palantir has been central to the specific targeting of individuals, families and groups. Many others, including IBM, Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet, provide a variety of services to the Israeli military that assist in the perpetration of the genocide. The report suggests that in excess of 1,650 private companies are complicit just in the production of a single weapons system – the F35 fighter jet. It signals a network of corporate complicity orders of magnitude greater. This includes financial institutions, global consultancies, energy, logistics and equipment companies, including well known entities such as Caterpillar, BNP Paribas, Barclays, Allianz, Chevron, BP, Petrobras, and A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S.

As a consequence of the US government’s extraordinary decision to sanction Ms Albanese and to call for her dismissal, as well as attempts to quash her superb report, we as leading experts on the arms trade globally wish to express our strong support for Ms Albanese and our absolute confidence in what we regard as a forensically accurate and crucially important report, and we call on the UN to dismiss the irrational and ill-considered demands of the US and Israeli government, the most active participants in the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

It is unacceptable to us that arms manufacturers, with the support of their governments, violate their own domestic arms export controls, regional and international agreements such as the EU Common Position on Arms Exports and the international Arms Trade Treaty, as well as their responsibilities under the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, which implicate the most serious international legal norms. We demand that arms export controls be applied domestically, regionally and internationally, which must lead to an immediate cessation of arms sales to Israel while the genocide continues. We, therefore, endorse the call from The Hague Group to prevent the provision or transfer of arms, munitions, military fuel, related military equipment, and dual-use items to Israel, including the transit, docking, and servicing of vessels, and urge all other states to do the same.

Signatories

• Jeff Abramson, Senior Non-Resident Fellow, Center for International Policy, US
• Ray Acheson, Director, Reaching Critical Will programme at Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), US
• Charles O. Blaha, Senior Advisor, DAWN; Former State Department Official, US
• Tariq Dana, Associate Professor of Conflict Studies, Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, Qatar
• Wendela de Vries, Co-founder, Stop Wapenhandel, Netherlands
• Andrew Feinstein, Author ‘The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade’, Executive Director, Shadow World Investigations. UK/South Africa
• Jürgen Grässlin, Author, ‘Black Book Arms Trade: How Germany Profits from War’, Germany
• Jeff Halper, Author: "War Against the People: Israel, the Palestinians and Global Pacification"; Director, The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD), Israel
• William Hartung, Senior Research Fellow, Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, US
• Shir Hever, Scholar of Israel’s Political Economy, Germany
• Roy Isbister, Chief, Arms Unit, Saferworld, New Zealand/UK
• Daryl G. Kimball, Executive Director, Arms Control Association, US
• Hans Lammerant, Arms Trade & Business & Human Rights Expert, Belgium
• Antony Loewenstein, Author ‘The Palestine Laboratory’, independent journalist and filmmaker, Australia
• Shana Marshall, Assistant Research Professor, Elliott School of International Affairs at the George Washington University, US
• Nancy Okail, President and CEO, Center for international Policy, US
• Sam Perlo-Freeman, Research Coordinator, Campaign Against Arms Trade, UK
• Paul Rogers, Emeritus Professor, Peace Studies, Bradford University, UK
• Laëtitia Sédou, Project Officer, European Network Against Arms Trade, Belgium/France
• Frank Slijper, Arms Trade expert at PAX, Netherland
• Emma Soubrier, Director, Pathways to Renewed & Inclusive Security in the Middle East (PRISME), France
• Anna Stavrianakis, Professor of International Relations, Sussex University, UK
• Francesco Vignarca, Campaigns Coordinator, Italian Peace and Disarmament Network, Italy
• Sarah Leah Whitson, Executive Director, DAWN, US

*This letter is signed in people’s individual capacities, not necessarily on behalf of their organisations

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