Scotland: Briefing - Scottish government action on Israel's violations of international law (December 2026)

This week we wrote to the First Minister with a new briefing setting out clear actions for the Scottish government to ensure it does not do business with companies enabling Israel’s violations of international law.   

We called on John Swinney to update parliament on what action has been taken to cut ties with companies supporting Israel’s war crimes, and to provide a guarantee that public funding for arms companies involved in Israel has stopped entirely since he announced in September that new grants would be halted.  

The letter reads: 

“Amnesty...found that defence companies understood to be manufacturing weapons components at risk of end use in Gaza - either locally here in Scotland or via their global chains - escaped thorough human rights due diligence and continued to receive grants via Scottish Enterprise as Israel’s genocide unfolded.  

Scotland must never again risk possible complicity in genocide or violations of international law.” 

We have also warned that an independent analysis of the human rights checks in place at Scottish Enterprise until June this year raised serious questions about ministers’ defence of the process as robust. 

Our research, and [an independent] opinion, found that despite assurances from ministers and Scottish Enterprise, the approach to Human rights due diligence was not well aligned to the UNGPs; Its objectives were unclear, and its methodology confusing and haphazard. A failure to clearly reflect that the purpose of human rights due diligence is to improve outcomes for people rather than solely to provide reputational and financial protection was identified in both Scottish Enterprise’s policy and the Scottish government’s HRDD guidance from which it was drawn.  

Our findings raise serious questions given the repeated assurances from ministers about the robust nature of the policy in place at Scottish Enterprise, which came under scrutiny because of the agency's support for defence companies manufacturing munitions.” 

In an accompanyng briefing we set out a range of clear calls on the Scottish government to: 

1. Provide clarity on the implementation of its policy to halt new grants for defence companies involved in Israel and guarantee that no further public funds have been paid to any company enabling any of Israel’s violations of international law, even under existing contracts.  

2. Prohibit any further public spend, investment or procurement, in relation to any businesses credibly linked to Israel’s violations of international law, including businesses listed in the UN database of companies involved in Israel’s human rights violations against Palestinians.   

3. Update parliament on the progress of rolling out a revised Human rights due diligence policy at Scottish Enterprise which includes detail on precisely what improvements have been implemented to date and what further improvements will be introduced in 2026.  

4. Revise its own human rights due diligence guidance for public bodies to ensure all stakeholders implement HRDD with the aim of addressing the actual or potential human rights violations linked to investments, rather than to protect themselves from financial or reputational risk.  

5. Issue advice to public bodies to avoid conducting business with companies that enable any of Israel’s violations of international law, including through preventing tendering, procurement and all forms of investment in and with such companies.