What We Believe.
We created The Justice Company to build an investment framework we could not find anywhere else at scale.
We looked for a professional, rules-based framework that treats involvement in the gravest human-rights violations as genuinely non-negotiable, while upholding a commitment to investment discipline and cost efficiency.
We reject the notion that investors should have to make trade-offs between their values and market participation. Genocide, apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and war crimes are not subjects that should invite compromise.
The Methodology
The Justice Company works side-by-side with Ethical Screening, an independent research agency with nearly 30 years of experience evaluating companies for social and governance concerns. They apply a human-rights exclusions methodology to determine whether a company is eligible for inclusion in an index or investment portfolio. It is designed to be consistent, evidence-led, and auditable, and is applied across all in-scope issuers on an ongoing basis through monitoring and review.
Below is a summary of the methodology, but we aim to be transparent and would be glad to share our full methodology on request.
Normative basis
Assessments are anchored in widely recognised international standards and reference points. These include the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the UN Global Compact, the Geneva Conventions and related international humanitarian law, OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises (including NCP mechanisms), and the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (including severity framing: scale, scope, remediability). The framework also incorporates location and context indicators (e.g., Freedom House reporting and conflict/fragility indicators).
This matters because it keeps the methodology tied to established legal and normative frameworks, rather than sentiment, headlines, or subjective “values” scoring.
Evaluating securities
The model uses a combined approach intended to capture both what a company does and where/how it operates:
First, companies are assessed against defined exclusion criteria, including direct involvement and linkages such as enabling, facilitating, profiting from, or benefiting from prohibited conduct.
Second, a territory and context overlay. A maintained list of higher-risk countries and territories flags contexts where severe abuses, weak rule of law, conflict dynamics, occupation-related conditions, or systemic discrimination elevate human-rights risk. This overlay does not replace the criteria; it increases scrutiny and can inform determinations that certain forms of activity cannot be conducted in a given context without contributing to, or benefiting from, associated abuses.
Certain severe activities are treated as exclusionary regardless of location, governance systems, or mitigation claims, including controversial weapons.
Exclusion criteria
A company is excluded where credible evidence indicates material involvement in any of the following categories in Tier 1 (active occupations with oppression) and Tier 2 (at-risk) territories:
- Human rights abuses and violations of international law: including being complicit in forced displacement, home demolitions, arbitrary detention, or severe restrictions on civil liberties.
- Restriction of basic human rights: including facilitating or participating in denial of access to essential services such as healthcare or education where linked to discriminatory policy or practice.
- Military and surveillance technology for oppression: including supplying weapons, technology, or equipment used for violent suppression of civil rights or surveillance or monitoring under oppressive conditions.
- Illegal exploitation of resources and land confiscation: including profiting from extraction or commercial activity linked to illegal seizure of land, homes, or property, including within illegally occupied lands.
- Apartheid and systemic discrimination: including benefiting from or participating in institutionalised discrimination, segregation, systemic inequality, denial of citizenship, or denial of equal rights on protected grounds.
- Occupation and illegal settlement colonisation: including profiting from or direct involvement in military occupation or illegal settlement activity, including related construction or infrastructure in occupied territories.
Evidence standard and decision rules
Assessments are evidence-led and seek corroboration where feasible. Evidence may include reporting or findings from authoritative international bodies, courts and proceedings, UN mechanisms, reputable NGOs, and other high-quality sources relevant to the alleged conduct.
Exclusion may be triggered where, with reference to the criteria above:
- a company’s activities cause or contribute to recent or ongoing serious human-rights abuse;
- it benefits from, enables, or materially supports such abuse through linkage pathways, including services, technology, logistics, financing, supply chain facilitation, or infrastructure support;
- it operates in contexts where it is deemed not reasonably possible to conduct the relevant business without contributing to, or benefiting from, location-related abuses;
- there are serious violations of international codes and conventions on human and labour rights, assessed with reference to severity (scale, scope, remediability).