DanWatch

Profile

Country/TerritoryDenmark
Websitehttps://www.danwatch.dk/
In their own wordsTo “expose companies with trouble in the ethics department.”

Funding

  • In 2019, total income was 3.9 million Danish kroner; total expenses were 3.3 million Danish kroner.
  • DanWatch has received funding from Denmark (Ministry of Foreign Affairs [Danida] and Ministry of Culture), European Union, United Nations, and DanChurchAid (see table below for further funding information).
  • In 2020-2022, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark (Danida) granted an unknown amount to Danwatch for a project titled “Investigate 2020-2022.”
  • In 2015-2019, Danida granted $549,535 to DanWatch to “improve working conditions, human rights and the environment in low-income countries.”

Activities

Examples of DanWatch’s involvement in BDS

  • In May 2021, DanWatch published a study on eight pension companies that “finance Alstom’s business on occupied land.” Through the lobbying of DanWatch, the “vast majority of the companies have therefore initiated a dialogue with Alstom with the aim of getting the company to withdraw – especially from the light rail project in Jerusalem, which connects illegal Jewish settlements with Jerusalem.”
  • In December 2020, DanWatch welcomed the publication of the discriminatory UN database of businesses operating across the 1949 Armistice line, aimed at bolstering BDS campaigns against Israel, however lamented that the database was “not exhaustive” and a “number of companies with clear connections to settlements are not to be found.”
  • In June 2018, as part of its role in a broader BDS campaign to damage Israel’s economy through the financial sector, DanWatch released a set of articles on pensions and banks that allegedly operate in the West Bank. The articles repeated the factually inaccurate and misleading claims of Human Rights Watch’s report targeting Israeli banks, which makes false accusations and invents international law.
  • In 2017, DanWatch initiated the project “Business on Forbidden Land,” focusing on Danish companies allegedly conducting business in Israeli settlements and opposing the marketing of Israeli goods produced in the West Bank.
  • In October 2017, DanWatch claimed that a “DanWatch-investigation” led to Danish pension fund, Sampension, to divest from four publicly traded Israeli companies.
  • On January 29, 2015, DanWatch posted a publication as part of its “Tourism on Stolen Land” project, funded by DanChurchAid, which targets seven Danish travel agencies for allegedly “systematically advertis[ing] occupied territories as Israeli” and violating the Danish Marketing Practices Act.
    • This publication was accompanied by a campaign accusing the firms of failing to inform “the tourists that they will find themselves in an illegal settlement…beyond Israel’s internationally recognised borders.” This is a political, and not a legal or ethical activity.
    • DanWatch claims that were are “ethical” problems in the advertisements, and it feared that the tours may help Israel reframe the conflict. Instead, DanWatch sought to create a litmus test for Danish travel agencies, forcing agents to accept the Palestinian narrative.
  • On September 26, 2014, DanWatch released a statement, “Danish trade with cosmetics from settlements: AHAVA,” falsely implying that the Israeli cosmetic company AHAVA illegally extracts natural resources from the Dead Sea. This publication was reportedly a major catalyst that led several Danish retails stores to remove Ahava products from their displays.

Methodological Failures and Reliance on Biased Political Advocacy NGOs

FunderYearAmountProject
Danida2020-2022Amount unknown"Investigate" 2020-2022
2015-2019$549,535The right to food
2014-2017DKK 5 million
($837,494)
“CSR-Facility. Fonden DanWatch. A strengthened watchdog which shares all its knowledge and fosters a nuanced debate.”
2015DKK 5 million*
Approx. $740,000
CSR Pool “The Right to Food
2013 DKK 5 million
Approx. $740,000
CSR Fund: “Strengthen a watchdog who shares his knowledge and creates balanced debate.”
Danish Ministry of Culture2013DKK 70,000
Approx. $10,000
N/A
DanChurchAid2015DKK 196,000
Approx. $30,000
“for work on analyzes (sic) of the situation in the West Bank” in 2015 (link dead)

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