In October 2025, Heartland Initiative—in partnership with the Business & Human Rights Centre and the Investor Alliance for Human Rights—launched the Working Group on Defense Tech & Responsible Investment. It brings together institutional investors, technical and legal experts, and civil society leaders to examine how the rise of defense tech is reshaping responsible investment and to develop practical tools for risk analysis, company engagement, and exclusionary screening.
The Challenge
Armed conflict is at its highest level since World War II. In 2025, the Uppsala Conflict Data Program recorded 65 state-based conflicts, the most since 1946. Battle-related deaths reached approximately 245,000, making 2025 the third-deadliest year since the end of the Cold War. By year’s end, 117 million people, one in every 67 worldwide, had been forcibly displaced. The economic cost of violence reached $21.8 trillion in purchasing power parity terms, equivalent to 10.5 percent of global GDP.
The defense industry has expanded and diversified in response, and the line between technology companies and defense contractors is disappearing. Today’s defense tech sector spans state-backed surveillance that collects and weaponizes personal data, military applications of artificial intelligence, autonomous weapons systems, and the growing militarization of immigration enforcement.
As a result, a growing number of companies are linked to human rights harms and potential violations of international law. This exposes them and their shareholders to material risks, including privacy violations, regulatory penalties, strategic litigation, and lasting reputational damage.
Our Objectives
The Working Group pursues seven interrelated objectives.
- Facilitating peer learning. We provide a forum for investors and civil society experts to exchange insights, challenges, and emerging best practices.
- Identifying the highest-risk technologies. We are developing a taxonomy of defense technologies and briefing papers on their salient and material risks.
- Mapping the defense tech ecosystem. Drawing on research from the Centre for International Governance Innovation, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, Stop Killer Robots, Surveillance Watch, and others, we are identifying key companies, their financiers, and the human rights and international law violations linked to their conduct.
- Building a risk analysis framework. We are creating a framework for investors to systematically assess the salient and material risks associated with the development and use of defense tech.
- Guiding company engagement. We are equipping investors with strategies to press defense tech companies for stronger policies, practices, and governance, including a “lawful-by-design” approach across the product life cycle.
- Defining exclusionary screening criteria. We are developing clear, actionable product- and conduct-based screens to help investors limit exposure to technologies and corporate conduct that contribute to the most severe violations of international law.
- Sharing implementation guidance. We will publish and promote practical guidance to help institutional investors put these engagement strategies and screening criteria into practice.
Membership
Working Group membership is confidential. Members include public asset owners and managers, banks, and private equity firms across North America, Europe, and Australasia, representing more than $18 trillion in assets under management and advice. They are joined by leading academic, legal, advocacy, and policy experts on military AI, autonomous weapons, and surveillance technologies.
Contact
Institutional investors and civil society experts interested in the Working Group’s research or participation may contact Aaron Clements-Hunt at aaronclementshunt@heartland-initiative.org.