Divestment is back. Notably associated with the anti-apartheid movement, when “as many as 140 states, cities, and localities” in the United States divested from South Africa over twenty years, divestment largely faded from public view with the end of apartheid. Even when Massachusetts and various cities took up the cause of promoting democratization in Burma during the 1990s, they restricted government procurement of goods and services rather than divesting shares.

State and local divestment emerged again to prominence (if not at 1980s levels) in response to the horrors of Darfur. By the end of 2008, twenty-seven states and the District of Columbia had divested from Sudan, as had twenty-two cities. In December 2007, Congress enacted an unprecedented federal law – the Sudan Accountability and Divestment Act (SADA) – authorizing states to divest, within important bounds, from companies that do business in Sudan. The Darfur movement also sparked wider interest in divestment. Most notably, at least nineteen states and the District of Columbia have divested from companies investing in Iran's energy sector.

The media are showing renewed interest in divestment as well. The word “divestment” appeared in 18 articles in the New York Times in 2005, more than in any year since 1990, the year South Africa released Nelson Mandela from prison. The Times' median annual use of the word since 2005 (13 articles per annum) is greater than during any five-year period since 1980, except for the height of the anti-apartheid movement in the late 1980s (61 articles per annum).