America sells more weapons across the globe than any other country, and each year we send them to countries with records rife with human rights abuses.
Whether it’s Saudi Arabia’s use of American weapons in attacks on civilians in Yemen or the many coups in West Africa led by American-trained officers, these outcomes stoke greater instability and conflict, which only undermines America’s national interests around the world.
There ought to be a law against this. Fortunately, there is. Unfortunately, it isn’t enforced.
But a bipartisan effort is underway to change that. If this effort succeeds, it would be a major step in reasserting Congress’ oversight role in military assistance and could open the door to far greater scrutiny over U.S. decisions to provide weapons, training and other support. This would not only make America a more credible champion of human rights but would also ensure our military tools don’t foster conflict and violence instead of peace.
The law is Section 502B of the Foreign Assistance Act. Passed by Congress in 1974, it prohibits U.S. security assistance to any country whose government “engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights.” It provides Congress with the tools needed to enforce this prohibition.
U.S. Sens. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., and Mike Lee, R-Utah, have introduced a resolution pursuant to 502B requesting a review of Saudi Arabia’s human rights record in order to inform a debate in Congress on how that record should affect our arms sales to the Saudis.
All this is in line with a provision in 502B that says that Congress can request a report on the human rights record of a target country and, based on that report, can vote to end or restrict aid to it. If the administration fails to provide the requested report within 30 days, aid to that country is automatically suspended. This marks the first time in decades that these mechanisms could be invoked.
The same law mandates the annual country reports on human rights practices, which often document patterns of abuse in countries we partner with. But these routine reports on every country, all released together once a year, haven’t been effective at triggering change. In contrast, a report requested under 502B, specifically called for by Congress, forces a public discussion on our security partnership with a specific country.
These reporting provisions were part of a major legislative push in the wake of the Vietnam War to enhance oversight of U.S. foreign policy and bring human rights considerations to the fore. The shift was in recognition that partnering with regimes that abuse human rights is not only morally problematic but also undermines U.S. interests in the long run.
In the case of its war in Yemen, for example, Saudi Arabia’s abuses have created one of the biggest humanitarian crises on earth. U.S. security assistance in West Africa has not only helped undermine democracy in several countries, but also, the violent terrorist insurgencies it was meant to rein in have only grown. Egypt has long been one of our biggest recipients of security assistance and weapons, despite its ongoing and systemic repression and abuse of human rights defenders and other civilians. This does not appear to be creating a more prosperous or stable state.
Despite these bad outcomes, Congress has failed for decades to make use of its oversight powers to end or limit support to abusive regimes, leaving the executive branch free to provide security assistance with minimal constraints. Section 502B is occasionally referenced by administrations as part of their own decisions to curtail security assistance, as the Biden administration did with Ethiopia in 2021, but Congress has never used its authority under this provision to block or limit weapons sales or other military assistance.
Congress has other mechanisms for exercising oversight over U.S. arms sales, but they are more limited. Under the Arms Export Control Act, the U.S. Department of State must report arms sales to Congress, which then can block specific transactions. But addressing one transaction at a time is unnecessarily laborious when it comes to abusive governments with whom we have extensive security partnerships.
Section 502B, in contrast, allows Congress to reevaluate the entire security relationship with a given country, and to do so in the public eye.
Such a reevaluation could end the inertia that drives aid to countries when it no longer serves our national interest. Even the U.S. has limited means to help its allies, and right now, for example, Saudi Arabia ranks ahead of Taiwan in line for critical weapons systems. Today, that makes little sense.
When a human rights review forces Congress to rethink the costs and benefits of our security relationships, our representatives might find better ways to use our limited resources, like dedicating them to strengthening countries that reflect the values and stability we hope to see more of in the world rather than those that don’t.
