TAKE ACTION FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

END U.S. COMPLICITY IN GLOBAL WAR CRIMES

We urgently need your help to get a crucial bill passed in Congress:

The Safeguarding Human Rights in Arms Exports (SAFEGUARD) Act would help prevent U.S. weapons sales to governments that use them to violate human rights.

It could be the most significant human rights and foreign policy legislation signed into law in decades. So much of what other world leaders do is out of our hands… but we can ensure that OUR taxpayer dollars don’t go toward harming civilians or committing war crimes.

It only takes a minute — send your letter to your senators and representative!

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I’m writing as an Amnesty International USA member to express my support for — and to ask you to help pass — the SAFEGUARD Act (S.1025 in the Senate and H.R.1801 in the House). The SAFEGUARD Act complements and updates longstanding, bipartisan laws that regulate arms transfers and uphold critical human rights standards.

Longstanding laws such as the Foreign Assistance Act and the Arms Export Control Act have been crucial in protecting congressional oversight and establishing regulations to prohibit U.S. arms transfers from being used to commit human rights abuses around the world. These laws, however, have proven to have significant gaps that permit human rights-abusing actors to continue to access U.S.-made weapons to commit violations of international law, furthering repression, violence and instability.

The SAFEGUARD Act addresses these gaps in existing law by strengthening mechanisms for accountability when these weapons facilitate human rights violations, and enhancing the important role Congress plays in oversight on arms sales that pose high risks to human rights.

Specifically, the SAFEGUARD Act would:

-   Strengthen the Leahy Laws: The act would require human rights vetting of foreign military and police units to receive U.S. arms sales, in addition to military aid, as the law was originally intended.

-   Ban arms sales to war criminals and genocidaires: The bill would prohibit weapons exports to countries where a determination has been made the government has carried out war crimes or genocide.

-   Apply end-use monitoring to human rights abuses: The SAFEGUARD Act would require the U.S. government to track when U.S. weapons are used to commit war crimes and internationally recognized human rights abuses and promote accountability for violations.

-   Enhance congressional oversight: The bill would require the executive branch to notify Congress of every arms sale — regardless of its value — to countries where a military coup has taken place or where security forces are known to have committed serious human rights abuses.

-   Codify the Conventional Arms Transfer Policy: The SAFEGUARD Act would further enshrine international human rights and humanitarian law considerations in all arms transfer decisions and require periodic reporting on implementation.

The U.S. State Department, in its most recent annual Country Reports on Human Rights practices, documents “sobering developments” in specific countries, including those in conflict. Human rights organizations like Amnesty International have documented extraordinary lethality in conflicts and violence around the world in 2023.

The U.S. Congress has historically played a vital role in requiring that recipients of U.S. security assistance uphold human rights as a threshold to continue to enjoy this support, but the tools Congress currently has at its disposal are insufficient to effectively fulfill this role. The protection of human rights is fundamental to establishing peace and security worldwide, key aims of U.S. national security and foreign policy.

To ensure that U.S. security assistance accomplishes these aims, Congress must act and pass the SAFEGUARD Act.

I’m watching your actions — thank you.

Sincerely,

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