Leahy Law: Context, Overview, & History

During the Cold War, the United States became a major exporter of weapons to countries fighting communism around the world. The issue of US arms sales to foreign militaries accused of human rights violations has been the subject of intense debate in the American political arena over the decades. This debate has continued into the War on Terror, even after the passage of the Leahy Law. What is the Leahy Law, and why was it passed in the first place?

Throughout the Cold War, the United States provided substantial amounts of armaments to militaries around the world as part of its effort to fight guerilla movements, some of whom identified as communists. The desire not to get into direct conflict with the Soviet Union meant that the US was perfectly willing to arm any faction that did fight them or their allies, such as the Laotian and South Vietnamese governments.

This approach made sense to policymakers in Washington because it meant that the US could avoid directly intervening in conflicts in the region the way it had in the early 20th century. The United States government recognized that extended military deployments abroad were very unpopular and sought to outsource much of the fighting to other parties. The Bay of Pigs invasion was a prime example of this. In the 1920s, the US likely would have resorted to direct military intervention to topple the Castro government in Havana rather than support an anti-government militia.

While the US still conducted direct interventions during the Cold War, such as the invasion of the Dominican Republic in 1965, it was more likely to arm governments and militias to fight wars to advance its foreign policy interests without being directly involved. This policy turned the United States into one of largest arms exporters in world history during the Cold War. It also forced the Soviet Union to double down on its own military expenditures and arms sales, weakening the Soviet economy.

However, many of the militaries the United States backed were responsible for terrible human rights atrocities. For instance, the United States provided major military assistance to the Salvadoran army and police during that country’s civil war in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1980, members of the Salvadoran National Guard, which received arms and training from the United States, murdered four American nuns in the country. Even though the US government claimed that this action was a rare incident, it was subsequently reported that the Guardsmen received orders to commit this crime from senior officers in the Salvadoran military. This was just one act in a long list of atrocities committed by the Salvadoran government against their own people.

Many militaries armed and trained by the United States launched coups d’état against civilian governments, such as the Chilean coup against Salvador Allende’s government in 1973. During the Angolan War, South African officers attended American military training courses that they used during Pretoria’s invasion of Angola. While Washington did not directly arm them, South Africa considered the United States to be a reliable partner and received US intelligence about the Communist forces in Angola. This practice only ended after the United States imposed anti-apartheid sanctions on South Africa in 1986.

The United States also armed Pakistan’s military during the Bangladesh War of Independence, even though Congress opposed this action. This was a particularly egregious case because the Pakistani army is recognized as having committed genocide against the Bengalis. Despite repeated demands from members of Congress and other advocacy organizations, the White House continued authorizing funds for militaries and militias with terrible human rights records right up until the end of the Cold War. The practice led to the notorious Iran-Contra scandal during the Reagan administration. Even though no one from the Reagan administration was held accountable for this, it opened up a serious debate in the US about who the White House was sending weapons to.

Congressional scrutiny towards American arms sales was unusual. When the United States invaded countries or sold arms to foreign militaries in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it generally did so without much difficulty. By the 1980s and 1990s, this changed. In 1997, Senator Pat Leahy, a longtime critic of US arms sales to countries with controversial reputations, introduced an amendment to the Foreign Assistance Act that monitored State and Defense Department arms sales and training programs. These amendments became known as the Leahy Laws.

Prior to this, there had been congressional or presidential action to stop US arms shipments to other armies or militias. For instance, the United States had placed an arms embargo on Argentina’s military because of the junta’s atrocities. However, there was no codified law ensuring that US arms could be halted to militaries with poor human rights records. Additionally, embargoes could be undermined by changes in Congress or the White House. Senator Leahy’s amendments were designed to ensure that the State and Defense departments had to monitor where and how US-produced munitions and weapons were being used. If the recipient committed atrocities and did not remediate, then the US government had to withhold military aid.

The Leahy Laws reflected a desire by members of Congress to force the United States to reckon with its policy of providing security assistance to every partner it could. The massive flow of arms to the Kuomintang regime in China led to the Communists getting control of them when they won the Chinese Civil War. This had serious consequences when the Chinese People’s Liberation Army entered the Korean War in 1950 and directly engaged American-led UN forces in combat. When the US supplied arms to the Afghan mujahideen, it resulted in jihadist militias gaining access to US-made arms after the war. Additionally, sending arms to countries or militias with poor human rights records led to a serious backlash from people harmed by these weapons.

Even though the Cold War had ended and many of the conflicts in Latin America were being resolved, the United States continued to sell arms to a host of bad actors. This time, the focus was on fighting terrorism and continuing the drug war. Leahy specifically focused on “Plan Colombia,” an operation by the US military to assist the Colombian army in its fight against drug cartels.

Colombian police, military, and paramilitary units committed serious atrocities during the drug war. These actions not only undermined the fight against the cartels and FARC (communist) guerrillas; they also weakened Colombia’s democracy. As a result of intense lobbying by human rights organizations such as Amnesty International, the US government withheld aid from certain units of the Colombian army and police. From the 1990s on, the Leahy Law specifically focused on conditioning aid to specific army or police units instead of a total embargo.

The Leahy Law came into effect repeatedly after its passage. For instance, the Kaibiles special forces unit of the Guatemalan army was refused US military assistance or training after committing war crimes. When several soldiers from the unit were prosecuted by the Guatemalan government, assistance was resumed. This case was cited as proof that the Leahy Law was working. Additionally, the US halted aid to Indonesia’s Kopassus unit due to its actions in East Timor. This hold was lifted when the Indonesian army promised to hold officers accountable for the army’s conduct during its period of rule.

The initial successes of the applications of the Leahy Law caused Congress and human rights activists to urge it be used more. After 2001, the United States increased arms supplies to countries in Africa and the Middle East to fight terror groups aligned with al-Qaeda. Arms shipments to the likes of Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, and Tunisia led to new complaints from human rights groups.

For instance, Nigeria has been a major recipient of US aid and intelligence in its fight against Boko Haram. However, its military became infamous for their abuse and murder of civilians they believed were affiliated with the terrorists. In 2015, the US began to limit some aid under Leahy provisions, but this did not lead to a major change in the behavior of Nigerian security forces. To this day, they are still accused of serious war crimes while remaining a critical US counterterrorism partner.

Notwithstanding its continued use, the Leahy Law faced criticism from US military officials. In 2013, the United States military argued that the continued application of the Leahy Law undermined joint training missions with other militaries fighting terror groups. For weapons developers like General Dynamics, curtailing aid due to the Leahy Law can mean a loss in profits. This has led them to lobby against the application of the law. In a blog post for the Council on Foreign Relations, US diplomat John Campbell observed that the Leahy Law often prevents American forces from training units which need it the most. This revealed a major challenge behind US security assistance: How to provide aid to militaries and police forces that need it without undermining humanitarian law. This is a problem that continues to this day and is currently being debated with the US arming Israel in its wars in Gaza and Lebanon.