LONDON, 22 February 2022, (TON): Human Rights Watch said in a statement issued “trade with settlements in occupied territories contributes to human rights abuses and must be halted.”

The group honed in specifically on the EU, urging the European Commission to “prohibit EU trade with settlements in occupied territories globally.”

Among the settlements HRW addressed are those exploited by Israeli settlers in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, the existence of which, it said, amount to a war crime.

HRW said in the statement “the transfer of an occupying power’s civilian population to a militarily occupied territory violates the Fourth Geneva Convention and, under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, is a war crime.”

The trade of goods produced in those areas, the group continued, “helps to sustain these violations of international humanitarian law,” and “entrenches the human rights abuses that often stem from settlements.”

Those abuses include land confiscation, natural resource exploitation, displacement and discrimination against the local population.