Genocide, Investing Cross Paths in Proxy

LOS ANGELES (TheStreet) -- American Funds shareholders succeeded in placing a proposal in the latest joint proxy statement to bar certain mutual funds from investing in, or continuing to hold, companies that contribute to genocide, crimes against humanity or egregious violations of human rights.

How could anyone not vote in favor of prohibiting investments in companies complicit in genocide and crimes against humanity? American Funds recommends shareholders vote against the proposal, preferring to leave human-rights judgments in the hands of its investment-advisory firm, Capital Research and Management Co.

Proponents of the proposal lament the absence of an American Funds policy to prohibit investments in human-rights violators. A specific example given by shareholders is PetroChina(PTR), which does business with the government of Sudan, which was responsible for the Darfur genocide.

Global companies that have been cited by the Securities and Exchange Commission as having previously done business in countries classified as "state sponsors of terrorism" include Nokia(Nokia), Siemens(SI), Total(TOT), Royal Dutch Shell(RDS/A), Credit Suisse(CS) and Deutsche Bank(DB). In other words, the largest companies everyone knows.

Amnesty International would add Yahoo(YHOO), Microsoft(MSFT) and Google(GOOG) to the list of complicit companies for working with China to censor Web content.

The shareholder group believes human-rights abuses must be considered an overriding factor instead of just basing investment decisions solely on economic criteria. The board's response clarifies that American Funds investment advisor, Capital Research and Management Co., does consider human rights issues of individual companies that "can affect companies' long-term prospects for success."