Leahy Law
| Leahy Laws | |
|---|---|
| United States Congress | |
| |
| Citation | 22 U.S.C. § 2378d (State Department version); 10 U.S.C. § 362 (Department of Defense version) |
| Territorial extent | United States |
| Enacted | First enacted as an annual appropriations provision on November 26, 1997; codified permanently in the Foreign Assistance Act on December 26, 2007; Department of Defense version codified at Title 10 on December 23, 2016. |
| Administered by | United States Department of State (Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor); United States Department of Defense |
| Introduced by | Patrick Leahy (principal sponsor of original amendment) |
| Amended by | |
| |
| Summary | |
| Bars U.S. security assistance to any foreign security force unit for which the Secretary of State (or Secretary of Defense, for DoD-funded programs) has credible information of a gross violation of human rights, unless the foreign government takes effective steps to bring responsible members to justice; requires vetting of intended recipients. | |
| Keywords | |
| Human rights; security assistance; vetting; GVHR | |
| Text of statute as originally enacted | |
| Revised text of statute as amended | |
| Status: In force | |
The Leahy Laws or Leahy amendments are U.S. human rights laws that prohibit the U.S. Department of State and Department of Defense from providing military assistance to foreign security force units that violate human rights with impunity. It is named after its principal sponsor, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont).
To implement this law, the U.S. embassies, the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, and the appropriate regional bureau of the U.S. Department of State vet potential recipients of security assistance. If a unit is found to have been credibly implicated in a serious abuse of human rights, assistance is denied until the host nation government takes effective steps to bring the responsible persons within the unit to justice. While the U.S. government does not publicly report on foreign armed forces units it has cut off from receiving assistance, press reports have indicated that security force and national defense force units in Australia, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico, Nigeria, Turkey, Indonesia, Lebanon, and Saint Lucia have been denied assistance due to the Leahy Law. On the other hand, Israel and Saudi Arabia have never been denied assistance under this law.