CHALLENGE
Crimes & Complicity
The Crimes & Complicity Team at ELSC is committed to ending impunity for state, corporate, and individual actors that facilitate Israel’s violations of Palestinian rights. Israel’s settler colonial project and ongoing war crimes against Palestinians are not sustained in isolation—they rely on extensive international support networks, including European governments, multinational corporations, financial institutions, and public institutions. These actors enable and profit from Israel’s crimes, providing the political cover, economic investments, arms trade, and financial mechanisms necessary to sustain oppression.
Our work seeks to expose, disrupt, and legally challenge these systems of complicity. Through legal strategies, litigation, investigative research, and advocacy efforts, we aim to dismantle the structures that protect corporations, financial entities, and political institutions from accountability for their role in enabling apartheid, settlement expansion, and military aggression against Palestinians. By targeting the financial and political foundations of Israeli occupation, we contribute to broader efforts for justice, accountability, and Palestinian liberation.
As movement lawyers, we recognise that the struggle for a free Palestine is first and foremost being fought on the ground, by Palestinians themselves. Our role is to support and strengthen this struggle by developing legal tools that empower advocacy efforts, disrupt state and corporate complicity, and create legal precedents that force accountability. While we operate as an independent legal organisation, our work is deeply connected to the broader Palestine solidarity movement. We bridge the gap between legal advocacy and grassroots activism, ensuring that our legal strategies are informed by the political realities of the struggle and that they directly contribute to movement goals.
The Crimes & Complicity Team conducts rigorous legal research and analysis to expose and challenge the political, financial, and corporate structures that sustain Israeli apartheid and occupation. Our work focuses on:
Legal Action and Strategic Litigation
We develop and support high-impact litigation that aims to:
Building Legal Capacity for the Movement
Beyond litigation, we equip the Palestine solidarity movement with legal tools to enhance advocacy efforts and protect activists from repression. We do this by:
Our Projects
Public Procurement
Financial Crimes
European Citizens Initiative to Ban Trade with Illegal Settlements
See more of our work >>
DEFEND
We combine defensive strategies and impact litigation with monitoring, training, and advocacy to build collective power, while ensuring that our strategies are informed by the political contexts of the movement in solidarity with Palestine, and contribute to movement goals.
Expose
We monitor, document, and analyse repressive measures and practices against Palestine advocates across Europe. Our reports reveal systematic and institutionalised forms of repression, illuminating patterns across sectors and countries to strengthen solidarity.
Have you faced or witnessed repression related to solidarity with Palestine?
Palestine advocates face a wide range of repression, including: Censorship and surveillance • Demonstration bans and arrests • Disciplinary actions and workplace suspensions • Financial repercussions and banking restrictions • Repressive legislation like anti-BDS motions falsely labelling solidarity as antisemitic • harassment and intimidation • Threats to citizenship and immigration status