International human rights activists, labor leaders, and students are leveling campaigns on several fronts against Coca-Cola, a product once advertised as the “friendliest drink on earth” and “the gift of thirst.” Among the many abuses alleged against the corporation are the conspiracy to kill and torture union leaders in Colombia and the dehydration of drought regions in India. This creates a rupture between Coke’s wholesome Americana branding and global perceptions of Coke's business practices:

Trouble is brewing for Coca-Cola across the globe, in part because of what it is and what it represents. For many Coca-Cola, like McDonalds, has come to depict what many despise: a product that symbolises America’s cultural dominance, a product that symbolises rampant American capitalism or American foreign policy or the policies of President Bush. (Andy Rowell, Spinwatch, 3 January 2005)

Stockholders and investors are paying attention, pressuring the corporation to address its record of exploitation. Coca-cola will hold its annual stockholder’s meeting in Wilmington Delaware, an event which union organizer Ray Rogers and other activities crashed last year.

"I want to know what [Coke is] going to do to regain the trust and credibility in order to stop the growing movement worldwide...banning Coke products," boomed the 62-year-old. That was just the beginning of a ninety-minute slugfest that the Financial Times later said "felt more like a student protest rally" than a stockholders' meeting. (Michael Blanding, The Nation, 1 May 2006)

Rogers spearheads the Campaign to Stop Killer Coke. The campaign’s website records a long lists of human rights crimes, including the two most recent and high profile:

• Conspiring with paramilitary death squads in murdering eight union leaders on Colombia. These murders occurred on Coca-cola bottling plants’ premises. This is all on top of the hundreds threatened, tortured and kidnapped by violent paramilitaries working in cooperation with plant management. (Message from SINALTRAINAL, the union representing workers at Coca-Cola bottling plants in Colombia, 11 Sept. 2003)

• Misappropriating and contaminating water sources in India. Coca-Cola’s practice of draining public groundwater are destroying arable farmland in areas of drought, a situation exacerbated by the indiscriminate dumping of waste and contaminants into the ground. The Indian government conducted tests, which show the cola's high toxicity making it unfit for human consumption (Coke is now offered to Kerala farmers as fertilizer). Coke and local governments’ responded to any protestors, “a handful of extremists,” with the use of force.(Campaign to Stop Killer Coke)

Add to this, a history of racial discrimination, aggressive marketing to school children contributing to the obesity epidemic, payoffs to U.S. dentists, marketing fraud, poor safety & health conditions in U.S. plants (Campaign to Stop Killer Coke).

Students have pressured universities to ban Coke and its vending machines from campus, including: Columbia, Hofstra, NYU, Fordham, University of Vermont, UC Berkeley, Bard College, Lake Forest College, University of Michigan and Rutgers University. (Naeem Mohaiemen, AlterNet, 17 January 2004). It is unlikely that this "negligible" business loss would scare Coca-cola, especially since 85-percent of its income is derived from outside the United States. (BusinessWeek, 23 January 2006). For a product like Coke, however, image is everything. At the moment, it is particularly vulnerable, losing market share to competitors and facing slipping soda sales.