By Simon Billenness, Executive Director, International Campaign for the RohingyaWe have an honorable American tradition of our cities and states upholding human rights. Now is the time for us to demand that our taxpayer dollars don’t contribute to genocide.
During the American Revolution, town meetings adopted resolutions calling for a boycott of British-made goods. The Boston Tea Party seized on the spirit of these resolutions through its historic act of dumping British tea in Boston Harbor. This revolutionary campaign is captured in T.H. Breen’s book “The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence.” It was in part through this “boycott British” campaign that the American colonies united and rose up to secure their independence.City and state “end genocide” laws build on this American tradition. These laws follow in the footsteps of other American campaigns and movements. The American abolitionist movement worked with local and state governments on measures to help end slavery. Starting in the 1950s, the movements for civil rights and women’s equality successful lobbied for municipal, county, and state preferences and requirements for certain contractors to develop plans to subcontract to minority and women-owned businesses.
In the 1980s, the anti-apartheid movement forced corporations to divest from South Africa under pressure from municipal and state laws. In the 1990s, over 100 corporations withdrew from Burma (Myanmar) after Massachusetts and over 20 cities passed laws effectively boycotting companies doing business in the country. In the 2000s, the Save Darfur campaign mobilized pressure on oil companies in Sudan. Today, the fossil fuel divestment campaign is succeeding in mobilizing state and local government to tackle climate change.
By passing an end genocide resolution or law, a city, county, or state can express its citizens’ values in its spending and its investment of taxpayer dollars as an actor in the marketplace for goods, services, and capital. In so doing, the city or state will also act in solidarity with people at risk of genocide, crimes against humanity, and other mass atrocities.
By passing an “End Genocide Law,” we can ensure that our hometowns will help end genocide through the spending and investment of our taxpayer dollars. We can ensure that our cities and our states will use their power as consumers and an investors to put effective pressure on corporations not to do business with regimes perpetuating genocide.
How Does This Help End Genocide?
The mission of our “No Business With Genocide” campaign is is to pressure key corporations to adopt a policy of not doing business with regimes complicit in genocide and/or crimes against humanity. We can achieve this by using our power as shareholders, consumers, and citizens. Governments rely on the investments and services of foreign corporations. Consequently, any threat of withdrawal by key corporations can serve as a deterrent to prevent governments from crossing certain lines, such as committing genocide.
Our power is not just as individuals. We also have considerable power as citizens to demand that our city and our state also use the consumer and investor power of the billions of our taxpayer dollars.
What would be the impact of our local “End Genocide” campaigns? In the course of our campaign to make your hometown enact an “End Genocide Law,” we could achieve the following:
Educate our neighbors about the risks of genocide across the world and what they can do about it in our hometowns;
Highlight corporations that support governments engaged in or considering committing genocide and/or crimes against humanity;
Put billions of dollars of our tax dollars to work influencing corporations to, in turn, pressure governments to avoid committing genocide or other crimes against humanity;
Provide a foundation for you and your neighbors to engage as citizens with your local city and state representatives;
Make our hometowns play their part in a growing global movement to end genocide.
What Do “End Genocide Laws” Do?
A city, county, or state “End Genocide Bill” is made up of four parts:
Findings and Definitions
Procurement Provisions
Investment Provisions
Establishment of Genocide Prevention Commission
In the findings, the city or state declares how the bill puts into practice its citizens’ values. The wording can include:
Whereas, the citizens of [city/state] hold as their values universal respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms;
Whereas, the [city/state] routinely purchases from and invests in corporations with global operations and supply chains;
Whereas, the citizens of [city/state] recognize the important role local communities can take to promote the practice of ethical procurement and ethical investment in accordance with their values.
The bill should use the definition of genocide contained in the Genocide Convention. Crimes Against Humanity should be defined according to Article 10 of the Rome Statute.Procurement Provisions
The city or state would use its power as multi-million or multi-billion dollar consumer of goods and services to put pressure on corporations in the marketplace for goods and services.
Effective immediately, in its RFPs and contracts, the city or state would require contractors to disclose any company policy that they have of not doing business with governments engaged in genocide and/or crimes against humanity.
Within two years, in its RFPs and contracts, the city or state would require contractors to have a written and formally adopted company policy of not doing business with governments engaged in genocide and/or crimes against humanity.
These provisions would apply to any contractor with the state with annual revenues of certain amount, such as $100 million or greater.
Investment Provisions
The city or state would use its power as a shareholder – or part owner – of corporations to put direct pressure on corporate management.
The city or state will require that its investment managers:
vote the city or state’s shares in favor of shareholder resolutions that ask companies to adopt a policy of not doing business with governments engaged in genocide and/or crimes against humanity
file an annual public report with the City Comptroller or State Treasurer on the investment manager’s use of shareholder advocacy with the city or state’s portfolio companies to persuade those companies to adopt and implement a policy of not doing business with governments engaged in genocide and/or crimes against humanity
Establishment of an “End Genocide Commission”
The city or state will establish an “End Genocide Commission.” For State commissions, two members could each be appointed by the Governor, Attorney General, Treasurer, Senate President, and Assembly Speaker. City commissions could be appointed half by the mayor and half by the city council.
The purpose of the “End Genocide Commission” would be to:
Research and publish annual report on:
countries committing and/or “at risk” of committing genocide and/or crimes against humanity
city or state contractors doing business in those countries
Convene periodic hearings on how city or state officials are implementing the procurement and investment provisions of the End Genocide Law
Create a local institution with government funding that can further the goals of the broader local, national, and international movement to prevent genocide and/or crimes against humanity
Now is the time for us to step up and make a difference. We can do this starting in our home towns. Working together, we can be the grassroots campaigners who will build the global movement to end genocide.
To join the campaign to end genocide, click here to contact the International Campaign for the Rohingya.
We can provide you with advice, materials to share with your city council member and state legislator, and connect you with activists around the world campaigning to enact their local “End Genocide Law.”
As you know, Sudan is facing one of the most critical humanitarian crises in the world today. It is the site of the largest internal displacement crisis on Earth. Conflict and genocide have 25 million Sudanese struggling with limited access to food, clean water, and basic medical care. That is half of the population.
Entire communities are uprooted, seeking safety in already overwhelmed areas, and the situation continues to deteriorate as resources become scarcer by the day.
We are reaching out to you because you have taken action for Sudan in the past. Over the past year, you have taken nearly 13,000 actions on behalf of the people of Sudan. Congress and the Biden Administration are listening.
Your donation will allow us to:
Continue to raise awareness about the genocide in Sudan. While it may not be leading newscasts or appearing on the front pages of newspapers, policymakers are talking about Sudan. That is because of your actions. With your help, we can continue to sound the alarm about what is happening.
Make the U.S. government do more to end the genocide in Sudan. Congress can and must act to end the violence, get more humanitarian aid into the country, and force the warring parties to sit down and work out a deal for lasting peace.
Stop the Biden Administration from providing weapons to the UAE. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has been the principal sponsor of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan. The RSF has been committing atrocities across Sudan. That must stop.
Make the NBA step away from the UAE. As the National Basketball League (NBA) touts its support for diversity, inclusion, and civil rights in the United States, it cozies up to dictators around the globe. In 2021, it entered into a contract with the UAE to inlcude hosting games in that repressive nation. By working with the UAE government and whitewashing its repressive policies and support for genocide, the NBA is complicit in the UAE’s crimes against humanity. We can make them stop.
The need is urgent—and every contribution makes a difference. With your support, we can bring hope to those who have lost so much. Please consider making a donation today to help us save lives in Sudan.
Help us end the #UyghurGenocide
As you may have seen, Volkswagen has announced it is leaving Xinjiang, China. This is due to public pressure from you and people like you who took actions to let Volkswagen know that its complicity in the genocide against the Uyghurs is not acceptable. In 2024, you took nearly 7
The Uyghur community faces genocide, persecution, forced labor and organ harvesting, and separation from their families at unprecedented levels. For years, millions of Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslim groups in China’s Xinjiang region have been subjected to severe restrictions on their basic freedoms, leaving families and entire communities struggling to survive under immense pressure.
You have taken nearly 70,000 actions on behalf of the Uyghurs. We cannot thank you enough for that. Because of you, Congress is listening. Because of you, companies like Volkswagen are leaving Xinjiang, and Shein is on alert. But we cannot stop now.
By making a donation today, you can help us:
Raise awareness of the issue. Companies like VW and Shein rely on people not knowing where their products and the materials for their products come from. It has been estimated that one in five cotton garments are made with cotton from Xinjiang.
Keep goods made with slave labor off the international market.Earlier this year, thousands of luxury cars made by VW brands were kept out of the United States because they included parts made by Uyghur slave labor. Your actions led to the ban on goods from Xinjiang. Your help will let us keep the pressure on lawmakers to keep goods made by slave labor out of the U.S. and other global markets.
Raise awareness of the use of #ForcedLaborFashion. So-called “fast fashion” companies like Chinese retailed, Shein, rely heavily on Uyghur labor to make the items they sell and for the cotton they produce. You can help us stop this. Take action to get Shein to stop using slave labor by going here.
Make the U.S. government hold China accountable for the Uyghur genocide. China continues to violate international law and the civil rights of its citizens because the international community allows it to. With your help, we can make Congress and whoever is in the White House in January force them to end this genocide.
With each passing day, thousands of Uyghur families risk losing everything. Your support today can give them a lifeline.
Ethnic cleansing of Armenians from Azerbaijan
Over a year ago, Azerbaijan invaded Artsakh (Nagorono-Karabakh), and forced approximately 120,000 Armenians to flee their homes. The Armenians had lived there for more than one thousand years. Now Azerbaijan has started erasing all evidence that Armenians ever lived there.
You have taken over 6,600 actions this year on behalf of the Armenians forced from their ancestral homes by Azerbaijan. This atrocity cannot go unanswered.
Continue to raise awareness about atrocities committed by the Azerbaijan government. While it may not be leading newscasts or appearing on the front pages of newspapers, we need to make people aware of what happened. We cannot let this second genocide of Armenians go unchecked.
Make the U.S. government do more to help the displaced Armenians be allowed to go home. Congress can use its influence to rectify this wrong.
Hold BP accountable for its silence in this matter. BP has been in the region since the early 1990s. Since then, it has been the largest investor in Azerbaijan, spending more than $84 billion on projects in that nation. The United Nations has called on companies like BP to pay closer attention to human rights in these high-risk conflict zones.
The need is urgent—and every contribution makes a difference. With your support, we can bring hope to those who have lost so much. Please consider donating today to help us get justice for the Armenians displaced.
Become a monthly donor: Provide ongoing support that will sustain relief efforts in the coming months.
Share our mission: Spread the word to friends, family, and colleagues about the fight against genocide, ethnic cleansing and other mass atrocities and encourage them to join the cause.
If you pay income taxes in the United States, your donation will lower your tax bill as it is tax deductible.