President George W. Bush on 31 December, 2007 signed into law a measure aimed at allowing states, local governments, mutual funds and pension funds to divest from Sudan businesses, particularly its oil sectors.

Statement: ‘Scrawling ‘not on my watch’ along the margins of this bill isn’t required, the president just needs to sign his name’

Following unanimous action last week in the U.S. Senate, the House of
Representatives today overwhelmingly passed the Sudan Accountability and Divestment Act, clearing the bill for White House action. The bill would authorize state and local governments to divest from companies that support the Khartoum government at the expense of marginalized populations in Sudan and prohibit federal contracts with those companies.

The US envoy to the UN on Thursday threatened Sudan with additional sanctions if it continued to drag its feet on allowing the deployment of 26,000 UN-African Union peacekeepers in Darfur.