The BAT tobacco group's decision to pull out of Burma looks at first glance like a conspicuous success for campaigners who want economic sanctions imposed on the most brutal regime in south-east Asia.
As a UK multinational, BAT said it was hard to ignore the formal request it had received from the British government to withdraw. BAT, the last big UK company remaining in Burma, will sell its 60 per cent stake in Rothmans of Pall Mall Myanmar to a Singapore-based investment group within a year. The other 40 per cent is owned by the holding company of Burma's military junta.
Pressure groups campaigning for disinvestment from Burma were jubilant, and will now doubtless turn their attention to Total of France and Unocal of the US, the two most prominent western corporations still operating in Burma. The two companies have stakes in the Yadana offshore gas field.
Unfortunately BAT's decision does not really tell us much about the state of ethics in western boardrooms or the effectiveness of sanctions. Burma is an easy sacrifice for a company eager to show it is on the side of the angels.
The junta's generals are serial human rights abusers notorious for persecuting Aung San Suu Kyi, an eloquent democrat and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. For a company such as BAT, the penalties of staying - including a poor image among consumers and shareholders - far outweigh the financial benefits of remaining in such a modest market.
But there is little reason for human rights groups to rejoice. Neither China nor Burma's south-east Asian neighbours show any inclination to impose sanctions. As Total executives argue, multinationals with reputations to protect pay much more attention to environmental and social issues in Burma than the Asian investors likely to replace them. If Total and Unocal pulled out, Burma's oil and gas revenues would be unaffected.
Worse, there is already evidence that sanctions are harming ordinary Burmese without in any way changing government policy. Thousands of textile workers have lost their jobs since the US banned Burmese imports, and the ruling generals make up for lost income by chopping down forests and selling them to timber-hungry China.
BAT's withdrawal from Burma is therefore not as significant as human rights campaigners would like it to be. Sanctions have little chance of working unless they are applied by all of Burma's economic partners.
It is also naive to argue that the BAT move is a milestone in the application of ethical investment principles.
If BAT, western governments or oil multinationals had genuine concerns about democracy, they would presumably start looking closely at their investments in Russia, China, and the oil-rich states of central Asia and west Africa. Do not hold your breath: unlike Burma, these nations have big economies, or large reserves of energy.