A foreign concern.

• Position: TRENDS & TRANSITIONS - Legislating pension funds - Brief Article

New Jersey Assemblyman William D. Payne has sponsored legislation that would require the state's Treasury Department to divest state-administered pension fund investments from companies doing business in and with oil-rich Sudan.

His reason: an ongoing, 20-year civil war in the Republic of Sudan that has left more than 2 million people dead and 4 million others displaced, and a nearly two-year long conflict in the country's western Darfur region that has left 1.6 million displaced and more the 70,000 dead.

"The world ignored the genocide that was occurring many years ago in Germany and more recently in Rwanda," says Payne. "The world's blind eye resulted in millions of people being slaughtered. We must act now to stop the ongoing atrocities in Sudan."

Some 100 of America's public pension funds in approximately 46 states have invested more than $91.2 billion in 83 companies, banks and financial institutions that...