Leahy Laws: Alignment of Human Rights with Foreign Security Assistance

Congressional interest in the laws and processes involved in conditioning U.S. assistance to foreign security forces on human rights grounds has grown in recent years, especially as U.S. Administrations have increased emphasis on expanding U.S. partnerships and building partnership capacity with foreign military and other security forces. Congress has played an especially prominent role in initiating, amending, supporting with resources, and overseeing implementation of long-standing laws on human rights provisions affecting U.S. security assistance. This book provides background on the Leahy laws, including a brief history of their legislative development; an overview guide to the standards and processes used to vet that is, review and clearforeign military and other security forces for gross violations of human rights; and a brief review of salient issues regarding the provisions of the laws and their implementation. It also examines the extent to which State and DOD provide guidance to their personnel to address the Leahy laws; how the State monitors whether U.S. embassies have developed procedures to address the requirements of the Leahy laws; how the state provides training to personnel who conduct human rights vetting; assesses the extent to which DOD and State safeguard U.S. military technologies sold or exported to the Gulf countries; provide similar or differing levels of protection for the same military technologies; and vet recipients of U.S.-funded military training and equipment for potential human rights violations. See more