A/HRC/37/39 I. Introduction A. Background 1. The present report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights is submitted to the Human Rights Council pursuant to resolution 31/36, on Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and in the occupied Syrian Golan, adopted by the Council on 24 March 2016. In paragraph 17 of resolution 31/36, the Council requested the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to produce a database of all business enterprises engaged in certain specified activities related to the Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, in consultation with the Working Group on the issue of human rights and transnational corporations and other business enterprises, and to transmit the data therein in the form of a report to the Council at its thirty-fourth session. The Council also requested that the database be updated annually. 2. On 13 February 2017, the Human Rights Council, pursuant to the recommendation of the High Commissioner, decided to defer consideration of the report to allow for additional time to consider the inputs received in the context of an open call for submissions, and to ensure a fair process for concerned stakeholders (see A/HRC/34/77). B. Mandate 3. Human Rights Council resolution 31/36 establishing the database follows up the report of the independent international fact-finding mission to investigate the implications of the Israeli settlements on the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of the Palestinian people throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem (A/HRC/22/63). In its report, the fact-finding mission found that business enterprises had directly and indirectly enabled, facilitated and profited from the construction and growth of the settlements; in paragraph 96 of the report, it provided a list of activities that raised particular human rights violations concerns (“listed activities”). In resolution 31/36, the Council defined the parameters of activities to be reflected in the database by reference to the list compiled by the mission in its report, which comprised: (a) The supply of equipment and materials facilitating the construction and the expansion of settlements and the wall, and associated infrastructures; (b) The supply of surveillance and identification equipment for settlements, the wall and checkpoints directly linked with settlements; (c) The supply of equipment for the demolition of housing and property, the destruction of agricultural farms, greenhouses, olive groves and crops; (d) The supply of security services, equipment and materials to enterprises operating in settlements; (e) The provision of services and utilities supporting the maintenance and existence of settlements, including transport; (f) Banking and financial operations helping to develop, expand or maintain settlements and their activities, including loans for housing and the development of businesses; (g) purposes; (h) The use of natural resources, in particular water and land, for business Pollution, and the dumping of waste in or its transfer to Palestinian villages; (i) Use of benefits and reinvestments of enterprises owned totally or partially by settlers for developing, expanding and maintaining the settlements; (j) Captivity of the Palestinian financial and economic markets, as well as practices that disadvantage Palestinian enterprises, including through restrictions on movement, administrative and legal constraints. 2