Just Peace Advocates

February 20, 2020

Alain Bellemare, President and CAO, Bombardier Inc. Danny Di Perna, President, Transportation
Pierre Beaudoin, Chair, Board of Directors, Bombardier Inc.

Dear Mr. Bellemare, Mr. Di Perna and Senior Management & Board of Directors at Bombardier & Bombardier‐Transportation

We are writing to you with regard to Bombardier’s past involvement in a proposed project to expand and operate an Israeli tramway linking settlements in the occupied West Bank. Just Peace Advocates has been monitoring the human rights situation in the occupied West Bank and is concerned that the proposed project may facilitate activity that constitutes a war crime under international law. Both Just Peace Advocates and Al‐Haq have written to you during 2019 but received no responses.

The light rail system links settlements to each other and to Jerusalem, thus entrenching and further facilitating Israel’s colonial expansion in the occupied territory. The International Court of Justice has ruled that Israel’s continued expansion of its network of Israeli settlements into Palestinian territory is in violation of Article 49, paragraph 6 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, and thus a war crime under international law [1]

We understand that Bombardier has decided to drop out of the tender to build the next phase of the Jerusalem light rail, joining Australia’s Macquarie and Germany’s Siemens in this regard. However, we also understand that Bombardier had a previous contract in place to provide light rail transit equipment for the Jerusalem light rail. We ask whether Bombardier’s withdrawal from the next phase of tender includes the cancellation of any contracts currently in place to provide equipment and/or other services to the same project.

We also note Bombardier’s announcement of June 2019 of an agreement to sell 74 more coaches to Israel Railways. We ask you to confirm that this transaction is not in connection with any project to build a rail connection to any illegal Israeli settlements in occupied territory.

If Bombardier has not already done so, we urge you to take all steps necessary to ensure that your company’s activities are in compliance with international law governing war crimes by ending all association with projects connected to unlawful Israeli settlements. We remind you that in Canada, parties that are complicit in war crimes are liable to criminal prosecution under the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act [2], including corporations.[3]

We further remind you that, ever since the Quebec Superior Court’s decision in Bil’in (Village Council) c. Green Park International Inc.,[4] it is also possible for a corporation to be held liable in a civil lawsuit in Canadian courts for complicity in a war crime. Although the Bil’in case was dismissed on jurisdictional grounds, Canadian courts in recent years have shown increasing willingness to assert jurisdiction over the overseas activities of Canadian companies where violations of human rights and international law are concerned,[5] and it is far from certain that the same result would obtain now.

We would be grateful for any information you could provide us in response to the questions above. If you would like to discuss the matter further we are available for a meeting in your Montreal office.

Sincerely

James Yap
Counsel for Just Peace Advocates

Copied: Karen Rodman, Executive Director, Just Peace Advocates Susan Powers, Head of Advocacy and Legal, Al Haq

1 Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Advisory Opinion (Int’l Ct. Justice July 9, 2004), 43 ILM 1009.

2 S.C. 2000, c. 24.
3 R.S.C., 1985, c. C‐46, ss. 22.1‐22.2.
4 2009 QCCS 4151 at para. 176.
5 See e.g. Garcia v. Tahoe Resources Inc., 2017 BCCA 39; Araya v. Nevsun Resources Ltd., 2017 BCCA 401 (pending appeal on different issue).