Mar
12
Written by:
ECRA Bloggers
12/03/2009 13:47
Vanguard Group Inc., the largest US manager of stock and bond mutual funds, has introduced human-rights standards criteria to investments.
The policy, developed in the past six months, is designed to identify companies whose "direct involvement in crimes against humanity or patterns of egregious abuses of human rights would warrant engagement of potential divestment," the company said in a letter to shareholders.
Investors Against Genocide succeeded in placing proposed investing guidelines on the agenda for 30 selected Vanguard funds at the company's July 2nd annual shareholder meeting. These proposals are part of the campaign coordinated by Investors Against Genocide, a non-profit organization, to convince mutual fund and other investment firms to change their investing strategy so as to avoid complicity in genocide. Vanguard have now adopted an essentially identical policy for all 157 funds.