SOAS Excludes Border Industry Companies From Investments
Nibras Salim, SOAS News Editor, BA Politics and International Relations
SOAS’ newly released investment portfolio has gained positive traction amid the university’s ascension in the People & Planet (P&P) University League rankings. P&P is the UK’s largest student network campaigning for social and environmental justice and their university league tables help characterise the environmental and ethical performance of institutions. SOAS has recently ranked 4th for ethical investment and 28th in the overall league. This position can be attributed to the university’s pledge to divest from militarised border companies.
This commitment has been welcomed by Andre Dallas, Co-Director of P&P, who has stated that this ‘growing wave of universities distancing themselves from this deadly industry is a powerful message.’ SOAS released its investment portfolio, pledging to divest from companies generating more than 5% of their revenue from border industries, fossil fuels, arms companies and companies complicit in the violation of international law. Full divestment is to be completed within a three year period. This commitment establishes an investment portfolio that best reflects the university’s own values and principles regarding ethical corporate governance and social issues.
According to P&P, these ethical investment commitments have led to the significant improvement of the university’s ranking, whereby SOAS rose from the 90th to the 28th position on the overall league - scoring 91% on the ethical investment and banking section.
Changes to SOAS’ investment policy were attributed to the successful mobilisation of the P&P affiliated ‘Divest Borders’ campaign on campus, alongside continuous internal campaigning of SOAS students and staff. There have been collective calls towards SOAS to adopt a publicly available ethical investment portfolio and divest from companies that ‘profit off the violent border militarisation regimes’. ‘Divest Borders’ have called for the divestment from companies including Microsoft and RELX - alleging these companies directly fund and provide the tools to international governments to; surveil immigrant communities as well identify and locate persons targeted for deportation.
A statement issued by SOAS stated ‘We want to thank the students and staff who contributed to shaping SOAS’s new ethical investment and banking policy. Upholding human rights and migrant justice lies at the heart of our university’s mission, which is why we do all we can not to invest in companies implicated in human suffering or rights abuses. We hope this policy will encourage other universities and organisations to adopt a more ethical approach to investment.’
SOAS compliance to the terms presented by the SOAS students and staff demonstrate a largely positive success for the Divest Border movement. SOAS students have largely welcomed the transparency surrounding the university investment portfolio- reassured that their tuition fees support ethical investments rather than militarised border frameworks.
