State governments are ill-equipped for foreign policy.

They don’t have embassies, ambassadors or navies, and their actions are governed by the laws and treaties approved on the national level.

They are not, however, powerless.

Legislation that will be discussed Thursday by the Labor Committee would require that the Maine State Retirement System divest itself of companies that do business in Sudan. The bill would affect about $50 million of the state’s investment portfolio and require the company to sell its holdings in 18 different countries.

Sudan is a humanitarian disaster. Government-backed militia have been conducting a campaign of violence against black African Muslims in the Darfur region that has been accurately described as genocide. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed, more than a million have been displaced as their villages have been burned, their wells poisoned. Beatings, rapes and killings are common.

The bill, sponsored by state Sen. Ethan Strimling of Portland and co-sponsored by Auburn state Rep. Deborah Simpson, would make sure Maine does not profit from these crimes and send a message that such widespread human rights violations won’t be tolerated.

Pulling $50 million out of Sudan won’t force the country to change. But along with similar actions by other states and colleges and universities, the combined effect can make a difference.

Divestment in South Africa helped break apartheid’s grip and hastened democratic reforms that ended generations of racist government and oppression. Perhaps the same thing can happen in Sudan.

The Legislature shouldn’t micromanage the investments of the Maine State Retirement System, but pulling the state’s investments out of Sudan is an obvious response to the genocide. It’s the right thing to do.