Council moves to remove pension investments from conflict and genocide-related assets

It said it hoped to persuade the £50.8bn London Collective Investment Vehicle - the investment pool for London-based Local Government Pension Schemes - to adopt similar policies.

Southwark is to work with fund managers to disclose and divest pension fund investments in companies listed by the United Nations OHCHR, and to become the first local authority to build the UN Genocide Convention into its investment framework, to avoid investment in any state found by the International Court of Justice to be in breach of the convention.

Council leader Sarah King said: “I have heard calls from people right across Southwark that they don't want to see their council inadvertently investing our pension funds in activities linked to this conflict.

“The council has been working towards this with the managers of our pension fund investments, but I want to go further by building the UN Genocide Convention into our investments framework and in the meantime seeking removal of investments in companies listed by the United Nations as being linked to the occupation of Palestine.”

It changed its arrangements earlier this year to give the councillors more influence on investment decisions on issues such as climate change, and will review how it can use this mechanism to promote human rights.

Southwark will call on the London Collective Investment Vehicle to create a more robust framework that will enable future exclusions of investments linked to conflict, military occupation or genocide.

This would also include developing a new fund which would give greater opportunity to divest from particular asset classes within pooled funds.

The council said it has monitored its exposure to 97 companies on the UN List, on a quarterly basis, and held discussions with investment managers stressing a focus on human rights as an important criteria of responsible investment.

Mark Smulian