Stockholm, Sept 30, 2013 (SPS) - The Swedish government pension funds announced Monday in a press release that it had decided to exclude phosphate importers the PotashCorp (US/Canadian) and Incitec Pivot (Australian), due to imports from the occupied Western Sahara, quoted by Western Sahara Resource Watch.
The fund said that engagement with the two companies did not lead to changed practice despite several years of effort, and that the fund´s ethical council “has therefore chosen to terminate the dialogue and issued a recommendation to each fund to exclude the companies’ shares from their investment portfolios. All four funds have elected to follow the recommendation”.
IT, therefore, recalled that to the UN’s legal counsel opinion of January 2002, which stated that any exploration of mineral resources in Western Sahara without local consent “would be in breach of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.”
Last year, the Norwegian government pension fund blacklisted the 2 same companies. (SPS)
090/089