BAE Systems

BAE Systems Plc is recorded on the exclusion list of Norway's Government Pension Fund Global as a product-based exclusion for 'Production of nuclear weapons', published 16 January 2018. The exclusion is not based on supply to Israel. The page states that the Norwegian Government has appointed a committee to review the ethical framework, reporting by 15 October 2026, and that under temporary guidelines Norges Bank 'shall not decide on observation or exclusion, but may revoke previous decisions'. The same list records the exclusion of Bank Hapoalim and Bank Leumi on 25 August 2025 for serious violations of individuals' rights in situations of war or conflict.

BAE Systems is listed first among the movement's non-Israeli institutional pressure priority targets in the military-security category, alongside Boeing, Caterpillar, Fanuc, Ford, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Rheinmetall, Rolls-Royce Holdings and RTX. This is a divestment and institutional-pressure listing rather than a consumer boycott call, and the list is described as non-exhaustive and dynamic. Checked live on 10 August 2026.

Company number 01470151, registered office 6 Carlton Gardens, London SW1Y 5AD. Anthony Clarke is recorded as company secretary, appointed 9 May 2024. Current directors include Charles Woodburn, Bradley Greve, Cressida Hogg, Nicholas Anderson, Thomas Arseneault, Crystal Ashby, Angus Cockburn, Jane Griffiths, Ewan Kirk, Stephen Pearce, John Pettigrew and Nicole Piasecki. Checked live on 10 August 2026.

Sales of £15,772 million for the six months to 30 June 2026, up 9 per cent, with a record order backlog of £84.0 billion. Full-year 2025 results are given as sales of £30,662 million, underlying earnings before interest and tax of £3,322 million and free cash flow of £2,158 million. The company reports 112,400 employees in more than 40 countries. It records £933 million returned to shareholders in the half year through dividends and buybacks, an additional $535 million award for M109A7 Paladin howitzer sets for the United States Army, a further £5.9 billion for the Dreadnought submarine programme, and that it is on track to recruit more than 1,100 apprentices and around 1,200 graduates and undergraduates in the United Kingdom by the end of 2026.

PAX is litigating whether the Dutch State must prevent F-35 components reaching Israel through third countries, principally the United States, as well as directly. At the hearing on 10 July 2026 the Court of Appeal ruled that classified documents would not be submitted at this stage. Director Rolien Sasse: 'All deliveries of Dutch F-35 components to Israel must stop. Not only deliveries directly from the Netherlands, but also those via other countries.'

All 22 resolutions carried. The report and accounts drew 99.99 per cent support and the directors' remuneration report 96.93 per cent. The re-election of Cressida Hogg as chair drew the lowest support of any director at 95.07 per cent, followed by Jane Griffiths at 97.68 per cent. Charles Woodburn and Bradley Greve were re-elected as directors. About 69.30 per cent of the issued share capital was voted. No shareholder resolution on human rights or arms transfers was put to the meeting.

Page last updated 28 April 2026. Records 2024 sales of £28.3 billion, 107,400 employees across 40 countries, and sales dominated by the United States (44 per cent of 2024 sales), the United Kingdom (26 per cent) and Saudi Arabia (10 per cent). On Israel it states that F-35 fighter jets are used by the Israeli military in Gaza, that in 2025 '15% of the value of every F-35 fighter jet was made in the UK, according to the UK Ministry of Defence', and that BAE Systems is the biggest United Kingdom company in the F-35 programme. It records that protestors blocked the entrance to BAE Samlesbury in Lancashire, 'where the rear fuselage of the global fleet of F-35s is made', in December 2023, February 2025 and August 2025, and that unionised workers blocked a BAE site in Kent in November 2023. It also records the December 2019 complaint to the International Criminal Court by a coalition led by the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights, which listed BAE Systems among companies whose executives should be investigated over Yemen, and that as of 2025 the coalition was still awaiting a response.

King LJ, Dingemans LJ and Whipple LJ refused Al-Haq permission to appeal, after a hearing on 9 October 2025. The judgment describes the applicant as 'an independent Palestinian human rights organisation' and records that the United Kingdom is the second largest partner contributor to the F-35 programme and 'designs and supplies critical components for the operation of the F-35 aircraft', and that F-35 aircraft of partner and customer nations alike are supplied from a Global Spares Pool of which United Kingdom components form a part. Dingemans LJ found no real prospect of success and no compelling reason to hear the appeal.

The Commission concluded that Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, finding that four of the five acts of genocide defined in the Genocide Convention were committed. The finding is confined to Gaza and covers 7 October 2023 to 31 July 2025.

Males LJ and Steyn J, after a four-day hearing between 13 and 16 May 2025, refused Al-Haq permission to apply for judicial review of the decision of 2 September 2024 to suspend export licences to Israel while excluding F-35 components supplied to the global programme. Oxfam, Amnesty International UK and Human Rights Watch intervened. The judgment records that the United Kingdom is one of eight partner nations and 'the second largest contributor of components after the US', and is 'the design authority and sole supplier for a large number of components which are critical to enable the aircraft to operate', including 'the tail sections of the aircraft's fuselage'. It records that Israel is a customer rather than a partner nation, that 'any new F-35 aircraft supplied to Israel will include components manufactured in the UK', and that spares drawn from the Global Spares Pool 'may' do so. The court held the true nature of the exemption was that Britain would not cease to participate in the programme, 'despite the fact that some UK-manufactured components would ultimately be supplied to Israel'. It concluded that the issue is 'a matter for the executive which is democratically accountable to Parliament and ultimately to the electorate, not for the courts'. The court did not hold the government's assessment lawful; it held the question non-justiciable.

Addressed to the governments of Australia, Canada, Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, the United Kingdom and the United States. Signatories include the Palestinian organisations Al-Haq, Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, MIFTAH and the Palestinian Working Woman Society for Development. The operative demand: 'We call on all F-35 partners to do everything in their power to bring the F-35 programme in line with their legal obligations and immediately halt the direct and indirect transfer of F-35 parts and components to Israel.'

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and the Department for Business and Trade announced the immediate suspension of around 30 licences for items used in the conflict in Gaza and going to the Israeli military, out of approximately 350 licences to Israel. The government concluded there is a clear risk that items exported under those 30 licences might be used in serious violations of international humanitarian law.

David Lammy told the Commons the suspension was 'not a blanket ban' and 'not an arms embargo', covering around 30 of 350 licences, with the rest continuing. On the F-35 he said the decision would not 'prejudge the international collaboration, global F-35 programme that supplies aircraft for more than 20 countries', that suspending all F-35 licences 'would undermine the global F-35 supply chain', and that 'the Business and Trade Secretary has exempted these licences from his decision'.

The International Court of Justice found Israel's continued presence in the occupied Palestinian territory unlawful and set out the obligations of other states in relation to trade and dealings arising from it. This is the legal framework on which export restrictions and procurement exclusions rest.

UN human rights experts named the arms manufacturers supplying Israel - 'including BAE Systems, Boeing, Caterpillar, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Oshkosh, Rheinmetall AG, Rolls-Royce Power Systems, RTX, and ThyssenKrupp' - and said they should end transfers 'even if they are executed under existing export licenses'. BAE Systems is named first. The experts said these companies 'risk being complicit in serious violations of international human rights and international humanitarian laws', and that an end to transfers 'must include indirect transfers through intermediary countries'. Investors urged to act include BlackRock, The Vanguard Group, State Street Corporation, Norges Bank Investment Management, Citigroup and JP Morgan Chase. The experts are Robert McCorquodale, Fernanda Hopenhaym, Pichamon Yeophantong, Damilola Olawuyi and Elzbieta Karska.

Brought by Oxfam Novib, PAX and The Rights Forum. The Court of Appeal found a clear risk that serious violations of international humanitarian law are committed with the F-35s, and ordered the State to cease all export and transit of F-35 parts to Israel within seven days. The case concerned general licence NL009, covering export and transit through the American-owned F-35 regional warehouse at Woensdrecht. It is the clearest demonstration that a partner state can stop its own flow of components into the programme.

The International Court of Justice found a real and imminent risk to the right of Palestinians in Gaza to be protected from acts of genocide, and ordered Israel to prevent them. The resulting duty of prevention is the framework against which national export licensing decisions on F-35 components have since been argued, including in the British proceedings brought by Al-Haq.

The American Friends Service Committee places BAE Systems on its BDS Divestment Shortlist, tagged Gaza Genocide and Weapons and Military Equipment. It records that BAE collaborates with Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman on the tail of the F-35; that in 2018 BAE 'was contracted to manufacture $20.4 million worth of transmitters for Israel's F-35s' through the United States foreign military sales programme; that BAE 'has provided the Israeli military with electronic missile launching kits and gunsight technology for F-16 aircraft'; that until 2021 BAE made components for Israeli combat aircraft through its Jerusalem subsidiary Rokar International, described as the Israeli air force's sole supplier of anti-missile defence systems fitted to F-15 and F-16 aircraft and Apache helicopters, and that Elbit Systems acquired Rokar in 2021; that in 2015 BAE developed the Rokar Silver Bullet precision guidance kit and supplied it to the Israeli manufacturer IMI Systems for the M401 155mm artillery cannon; and that BAE partnered with the Israeli state-owned manufacturer Rafael to upgrade its MK-38 Typhoon remotely controlled naval gun, installed on the Israeli military's Protector unmanned boat used to enforce the blockade of Gaza. The page records evidence of war crimes in the 2014 and 2021 assaults on Gaza published by the Palestinian human rights organisations Al-Haq, Al Mezan and the Palestinian Center for Human Rights. It lists divestment votes naming BAE at York University (2012 and 2013), Carleton University (2012), Michigan-Dearborn (2010) and Cardiff University (2009), and a 2018 boycott call by Cambridge University Palestine Society and Cambridge University Kurdish Society. Page valid as of 17 November 2022.