Leanne Gillespie usually keeps up with world events, but she admits she was not aware of the atrocities in the Darfur region in the western Sudan until she heard actor George Clooney speak about the conflict before the United Nations Security Council last September.

An estimated 200,000 to 400,000 people have died in Darfur, and 2 million people have been displaced in fighting between tribes and government-backed Arab militias. Clooney described it as the first genocide of the 21st century.

"I couldn't believe it had been going on and I didn't know about it," said Gillespie, a state employee who was so moved she founded the Hawai'i Coalition for Darfur. "I was horrified."

Human-rights activists, religious leaders and everyday people like Gillespie want Hawai'i to make a statement against genocide in Darfur by directing the state Employees' Retirement System to divest from about two dozen foreign companies that do business in Sudan.

The movement is reminiscent of the drive in the 1980s to divest from South Africa in protest of apartheid, the government's policy of segregating whites and other races.

Seven states have adopted divestment strategies toward Sudan, and national activists have identified about 20 others, including Hawai'i, for new laws this year.

But some foreign trade interests say such laws are unconstitutional because they interfere with the federal government's authority to conduct foreign policy.

The state Employees' Retirement System, which has zealously guarded its discretionary control over $10.2 billion in assets, also opposes the idea because it could invite lawsuits and limit the potential return on investment for retired state and county employees.

The United States has since 1997 imposed sanctions on Sudan because of its support for international terrorism and its human-rights abuses. The Bush administration has provided humanitarian assistance and has worked with the United Nations and the African Union toward peace, but American companies are mostly barred from doing business in Sudan.

Activists have targeted about two dozen foreign companies, hoping the Sudan government will stop financing the militias believed responsible for many of the atrocities if outside investment in the country declines.

"The goal is to stop fueling genocide," said Sam Bell, director of advocacy for the Genocide Intervention Network in Washington, D.C.

Last month in Illinois, a federal judge overturned a state law that prohibited investment in Sudan as unconstitutional. The judge ruled that the law's restriction against depositing state money in banks with financial ties to Sudan interfered with the federal government's conduct of foreign affairs. The judge found that the law's limits on state pension funds that invest in companies that do business in Sudan intruded on the federal government's regulation of foreign commerce.

The laws in other states relating to divestment in Sudan — and the one being proposed in Hawai'i — are not considered as restrictive as the Illinois law.

But the National Foreign Trade Council, which brought the lawsuit in Illinois, says such laws are unconstitutional.

The council, which represents companies that invest abroad, was also behind a legal challenge to a Massachusetts law that prohibited state contracts with companies doing business in Myanmar. The United States Supreme Court ruled in 2000 that the law was unconstitutional because it undermined the president's capacity to conduct foreign policy.

"States should not be meddling in foreign policy," said Daniel O'Flaherty, the council's vice president in Washington, D.C.

In Hawai'i, the state House has passed a bill that would give administrators of the Employees' Retirement System 15 months to contact about two dozen foreign companies about divestment in Sudan. If the companies refuse to divest, the retirement fund is required to sell-off stock in the companies as long as it represents less than .05 percent of the fund's portfolio.

Retirement-fund officials estimate that about $40 million in assets is invested in foreign companies doing business in Sudan.

"I believe we have a moral obligation to do the kind of investments that reflect our values as a state," said state Rep. Roy Takumi, D-36th (Pearl City, Momilani, Pacific Palisades), author of the bill. "I think, obviously, we as a state do not support genocide."

The state Senate is expected to take up the bill this week.

In the 1980s, Hawai'i was among several states that divested from South Africa over apartheid. A resolution passed by the state Legislature urged the retirement fund to sell off an estimated $600 million in investments related to South Africa. The University of Hawai'i Board of Regents sold off $2.7 million in South Africa-tied investments.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Honolulu, which is among the groups in favor of the bill targeting Sudan, says divestment is the least the state can do to support the people of Darfur.

"The basic fundamental human right is life, and we have all of these lives being snuffed out by these horrible atrocities," said the Rev. Marc Alexander, vicar-general of the diocese.

Reach Derrick DePledge at ddepledge@honoluluadvertiser.com.