UK settlement goods ban hinges on proving West Bank export origins

The UK is weighing a ban on goods and services linked to illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Its success will depend on proving product origins without harming Palestinian trade.

In Short

• Customs checks rely mainly on paperwork because products often look identical
• Mixing during packaging can hide whether olives or wine come from settlements
• Existing UK rules already deny tariff preferences to settlement-made products

The UK's planned ban on trade in goods and services from illegal Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories is likely to hinge on one issue: whether the origin of those goods can be proved and checked. An analysis in The Conversation said the main challenge is not announcing the sanctions, but making them enforceable in practice.

The article said the issue has parallels with efforts to keep "blood diamonds" out of global markets, though the goods involved here are far less valuable. It pointed to exports such as dates and olives from the West Bank which, according to UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband, are "supporting ... settler terrorism and ethnic cleansing", and said tracing their origin is difficult because products from settlements and from Israel can be indistinguishable and may also be mixed during processing.

The sanctions have been widely reported as difficult, or even impossible, to implement. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has previously expressed "reasonable concern" that enforcement would be weakened because distinctions between internationally recognised Israeli territory and the Occupied Palestinian Territories are not applied consistently. The FCDO has also raised concerns about over-compliance with sanctions and unintended consequences.

The report said the proposed sanctions build on existing law. The FCDO already strongly advises "against conducting any economic and financial activities in illegal Israeli settlements". Since 2005, products made in Israeli settlements in territories occupied by Israel since 1967 have not qualified for preferential tariff treatment on entry into the UK, and a list of non-eligible locations is published at postcode level.

Even so, proving where a product comes from remains difficult, especially in the agri-food sector. In the West Bank, the article said, boundaries are more political than geographical, and olive trees in illegal settlements and in neighbouring core Israeli territory are likely to share the same climate, geology and even irrigation water. That makes the olives themselves indistinguishable, leaving origin to be established largely through paperwork checked by customs authorities, a task that can strain already stretched resources.

In the EU and the UK, products from illegal settlements do not receive the same preferential treatment as products from other parts of Israel. However, analysis by Israeli corporate and legal watchdog Global Echo Litigation Center of more than 30,000 trade records estimated that roughly one-fifth of Israeli shipments to the EU originate from a settlement. Its report highlighted ways in which origin can be obscured or falsified, including using the postcode of an illegal settlement while claiming the location is in Israel, giving a false address within Israel, or mixing products from Israel with those from settlements during packaging or further processing, such as grapes into wine or olives into oil.

The article then set out examples of how similar restrictions are enforced elsewhere. It said the Kimberley Process, introduced in 2003 to stop trade in blood diamonds, relies on certification and audits whose cost is small compared with the value of diamonds, and because there are relatively few production points. Even so, the system has faced criticism for enabling diamond laundering, and the cost of certification is more significant for lower-value goods such as those exported from the West Bank.

Another example cited was the EU Deforestation Regulation, which is meant to ensure products consumed in the EU do not contribute to deforestation or forest degradation. Its requirement for precise origin information throughout the supply chain has been postponed twice because of the high implementation cost. The simplified package, due to be enforced from December 2026, is estimated to cut compliance costs by about 75 per cent compared with the original design, underlining how expensive detailed origin verification can be.

The article also pointed to the US Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, which shifts the burden of proof to importers. Under that approach, importers must provide "clear and convincing evidence" that goods from the affected region are made without forced labour, after which they are placed on a list of permitted importers. The report said this could provide a model for prior approval of entities rather than retrospective scrutiny of individual shipments from the West Bank.

It also referred to sanctions on imports from Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory, but said there is an important difference. In that case, Ukraine is involved in certifying origin. By contrast, all goods from the West Bank, whether Palestinian exports or products from settlements, leave through Israeli ports under Israeli authority. The article said Global Echo's research found these to be untrustworthy on questions of origin certification. It argued that origin would therefore need to be established before export, with a clear chain of custody to preserve identity and keep products of different origins separate, because otherwise a ban on imports from illegal settlements would be meaningless. Combined with shifting the burden of proof to a limited list of importers, such a chain of custody could make the announced sanctions enforceable, it said.

The article said there are also concerns about unintended consequences. New rules could affect wider trade with Israel, including pharmaceutical products, cosmetics and technology. If the system is seen as too complex, companies may avoid imports from the West Bank altogether, hurting Palestinian exporters. It said the central issue is not whether the UK can tell settlement olives from Israeli ones, but who pays the cost of proving origin. With fruits and vegetables, oils and fats among the UK's main imports from the occupied Palestinian territories, and many Palestinians in the West Bank dependent on agriculture for their livelihoods, the article said they could be the most severely affected unless proof of origin is built into supply chains.

With PTI Inputs

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