Foreign Policy

This position would turn the existing Leahy Law — which bars U.S. military assistance to foreign units that commit gross human rights violations — into a mandatory legal prohibition with no national security exception that can override it. By making it a permanent statutory ban rather than a policy subject to waivers, this ensures that human rights protections cannot be bypassed for strategic convenience.

Codify the Leahy Law as a mandatory statutory prohibition with no national security waiver

The Leahy Law (22 U.S.C. § 2378d) prohibits U.S. military assistance to foreign security force units credibly implicated in gross violations of human rights, but its enforcement has been chronically undermined by executive discretion and insufficiently resourced vetting. Congress must codify the Leahy Law as a mandatory, non-waivable statutory prohibition applicable to all U.S. defense cooperation, foreign military sales, foreign military financing, and security assistance programs. The national security waiver that allows the executive branch to override Leahy vetting determinations must be eliminated entirely; no strategic interest justifies providing weapons to units credibly implicated in torture, extrajudicial killing, or systematic attacks on civilians. The codified prohibition must: (a) define "gross violations of human rights" to incorporate the full catalog of serious IHL violations, including sexual violence, enforced disappearances, and deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure; (b) require that all credible allegations of violation be independently investigated within 60 days with public findings reported to Congress; (c) extend liability to chains of command that ordered or ratified violations, not only direct perpetrators; (d) mandate automatic suspension of all assistance to affected units pending investigation resolution; and (e) establish a private right of action for survivors of violations to seek declaratory relief compelling compliance. The United States accounts for approximately 40% of global arms exports — a market position that carries legal and moral obligations that cannot be discharged by vague enforcement discretion.

1. Leahy Law, 22 U.S.C. § 2378d (2014). https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/22/2378d ↩
2. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. (2024). SIPRI arms transfers database. https://www.sipri.org/databases/armstransfers ↩

This position requires a formal human rights certification before any major arms sale can be approved, confirming the recipient government is not using or likely to use the weapons to commit abuses. It also establishes criminal liability for U.S. officials who knowingly approve weapons transfers to military units or governments documented as committing war crimes.

Require Human Rights Certification for all major arms sales and establish criminal liability for approving transfers to war crimes units

Congress must enact three interlocking structural reforms to the Foreign Military Sales system. First, all Foreign Military Sales exceeding $1 million in value must be accompanied by a statutory Human Rights Certification — a documented, independently reviewed assessment signed by the Secretary of State certifying that the recipient government is not currently under credible investigation by the United Nations, the International Criminal Court, or a U.S. government body for war crimes, crimes against humanity, or systematic gross violations of human rights. No FMS contract may be executed without this certification, and no national security exception may override its requirement. Second, the Government Accountability Office must conduct mandatory annual audits of end-use monitoring for all arms transfers to countries identified in the State Department's Country Reports on Human Rights Practices as having documented serious violations. GAO findings must be transmitted to Congress within 90 days of fiscal year close and must be publicly released in unclassified form. Third, Congress must establish criminal liability — felony prosecution, removal from federal service, and civil liability for resulting harm — for any U.S. government official who knowingly approves an arms transfer through any mechanism to a foreign security force unit under credible, documented investigation for war crimes or crimes against humanity at the time of approval. "Knowingly" is satisfied where the official had access to intelligence assessments, State Department findings, or UN investigative reports documenting the investigation. Arms sales that fund atrocities are not foreign policy — they are complicity with legal consequences.

1. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. (2024). Trends in international arms transfers, 2023 (SIPRI Fact Sheet). https://www.sipri.org ↩
2. Arms Export Control Act, 22 U.S.C. §§ 2751–2799aa-2 (1976). https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/22/chapter-39 ↩

This position requires the U.S. government to fully fund the HAVANA Act, which provides compensation and medical benefits to diplomats and intelligence officers who suffered unexplained neurological symptoms — known as Havana Syndrome — while serving overseas. Diplomatic personnel who sustained confirmed injuries in the line of duty must receive guaranteed benefits and care.

Fully fund the HAVANA Act and mandate benefits for diplomatic personnel with confirmed anomalous health incidents

Since 2016, more than 1,500 U.S. government personnel — diplomats, intelligence officers, and their families — have reported anomalous health incidents (AHI) consistent with the neurological symptoms first documented at the U.S. Embassy in Havana, Cuba. Congress passed the HAVANA Act (Pub. L. 117-46) in 2021 to provide medical benefits and financial support to affected personnel, but implementation has been inconsistent, bureaucratically delayed, and chronically underfunded, leaving affected government workers without promised compensation. Congress must fully fund the HAVANA Act with a mandatory, non-discretionary appropriation sufficient to cover all confirmed cases, and must require that benefit payments be initiated within 90 days of confirmed diagnosis by a government-recognized clinician. Bureaucratic processes that require personnel to repeatedly re-prove eligibility or navigate extended appeals while suffering active neurological symptoms must be eliminated. The intelligence community must be required to release an unclassified summary of its findings on the cause and origin of AHIs within 180 days of enactment — the persistent classification of basic findings has left affected personnel without explanation and the public without accountability for what happened to U.S. government employees and their families on official assignment. Any investigation into AHI causation must be conducted or independently reviewed by a body structurally separate from the agencies with the most investment in particular conclusions. The United States must also raise anomalous health incidents as a priority concern in all relevant bilateral diplomatic channels and must treat documented evidence of deliberate targeting of U.S. diplomatic personnel as a serious violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations requiring a proportionate diplomatic and legal response.

1. HAVANA Act of 2021, Pub. L. 117-46, 135 Stat. 391 (2021). https://www.congress.gov/117/plaws/publ46/PLAW-117publ46.pdf ↩
2. Government Accountability Office. (2023). Havana Syndrome: State and CIA actions to support affected personnel (GAO-23-106000). https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-23-106000 ↩

This position requires risk-based security upgrades to U.S. embassies and consulates around the world, prioritized by threat level, and establishes a dedicated career track for Diplomatic Security Service officers. Protecting U.S. diplomats and embassy staff requires sustained investment in security infrastructure and a professional security corps, not ad hoc responses after attacks occur.

Mandate risk-tiered embassy security upgrades and create a dedicated Diplomatic Security Service career track

The physical and personnel security of U.S. diplomatic missions — embassies, consulates, and other official U.S. government facilities abroad — is a precondition for effective diplomacy and a fundamental obligation to the personnel who serve there. Congress must require the Department of State to complete a comprehensive, risk-tiered security assessment of all diplomatic facilities within 18 months of enactment, categorizing posts by threat level and mandating specific, standards-based security upgrades at all Tier 1 and Tier 2 facilities within three years. Facilities that cannot meet minimum security standards within the required timeframe must be temporarily closed until standards are met — not left operating with known, documented vulnerabilities. Security funding for diplomatic facilities must be established as a mandatory, non-rescindable appropriation, not subject to sequestration, continuing resolutions, or across-the-board discretionary cuts that routinely shortchange physical infrastructure. Separately, the Bureau of Diplomatic Security must create a dedicated career track for Diplomatic Security Service officers, with competitive total compensation benchmarked against comparable federal law enforcement, structured promotion pathways at each grade level, and mandatory retention incentives — including student loan repayment, housing assistance, and family support — designed to prevent the documented attrition of experienced security professionals to the private sector. The persistent underinvestment in diplomatic security infrastructure and personnel, documented across multiple State Department Inspector General reports, creates preventable risk to U.S. personnel and degrades the credibility and reach of U.S. diplomatic engagement worldwide.

1. Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, Apr. 18, 1961, 23 U.S.T. 3227, 500 U.N.T.S. 95. https://legal.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/english/conventions/9_1_1961.pdf ↩
2. U.S. Department of State, Office of Inspector General. (2023). Management alert: Diplomatic Security staffing and physical security deficiencies at overseas posts. https://www.stateoig.gov ↩

This position requires Congress to set a mandatory minimum foreign aid budget of at least 0.7% of U.S. gross national income — the internationally agreed UN target — as a non-discretionary appropriation that cannot be cut by executive order. It also codifies USAID's independence so the agency can only be led by Senate-confirmed officials who can be removed only for genuine cause, not political reasons.

Establish a statutory foreign aid floor of 0.7% of GNI and codify USAID independence with cause-only removal protection

Congress must establish by statute a minimum foreign aid appropriation of no less than 0.7% of U.S. gross national income — the internationally agreed UN target — structured as a mandatory non-discretionary appropriation that cannot be rescinded by executive order, withheld by the Office of Management and Budget, or reduced below floor level without affirmative Congressional action. USAID must be codified as an independent agency whose administrator is appointed by the President with Senate confirmation and may be removed only for cause — neglect of duty, malfeasance, or incapacity — not at executive pleasure. Programmatic freezes that interrupt congressionally appropriated foreign assistance must require explicit statutory authorization identifying the program, amount, and duration of any freeze. Criminal penalties must attach to executive-branch officials who unilaterally withhold or impound congressionally appropriated foreign assistance funds.

The UN 0.7% GNI aid target was established in General Assembly Resolution 2626 (XXV) (1970) and reaffirmed in the Monterrey Consensus (2002) and the Addis Ababa Action Agenda (2015). The U.S. currently contributes approximately 0.18% of GNI in official development assistance. USAID independence with cause-only removal protection directly addresses the structural vulnerability exposed by the 2025 executive freeze of foreign assistance without congressional authorization.

This position requires the U.S. to use its voting power at the IMF and World Bank to support debt relief for the world's poorest heavily indebted countries and to oppose loan conditions that force those countries to cut health care, education, or other essential services. Conditions that the World Bank's own research shows have worsened health and poverty outcomes must not be repeated.

Support multilateral debt relief for Heavily Indebted Poor Countries and oppose IMF and World Bank austerity conditionality that cuts health and education spending

The United States must use its voting weight in the International Monetary Fund and World Bank Group to support comprehensive multilateral debt relief for Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) as a standing condition of U.S. participation in these institutions' governance. U.S. executive directors at the IMF and World Bank must oppose loan conditionality that requires recipient countries to reduce public health expenditures, cut education funding, freeze public sector wages, or privatize essential public services as a precondition for debt relief or emergency lending. Structural adjustment conditions that have demonstrably worsened health and development outcomes must not be replicated. Evidence-based conditionality focused on anti-corruption, public financial management transparency, and domestic revenue mobilization is permissible; mandated cuts to essential human services that the World Bank's own research identifies as counterproductive to development are not. U.S. executive directors must vote against any conditionality package that the World Bank's Independent Evaluation Group has identified as producing adverse health or education outcomes in comparable prior programs.

The HIPC Initiative, launched in 1996, has provided debt relief to 37 countries. IMF conditionality requiring austerity in social services has been documented by the IMF's own Independent Evaluation Office and academic research as producing adverse health and development outcomes in low-income countries. The World Bank's own research on structural adjustment outcomes supports the need for this reform.

This position bans investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) clauses from all U.S. trade agreements — mechanisms that allow corporations to sue governments before private arbitration panels when those governments pass labor, health, or environmental laws that affect corporate profits. It also requires a binding public human rights impact assessment before any trade agreement is submitted to Congress, and full Senate ratification for any agreement that constrains domestic regulatory authority.

Ban investor-state dispute settlement clauses from all U.S. trade agreements and require Senate ratification with a binding human rights impact assessment

All U.S. trade agreements must: (a) prohibit investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) clauses — mechanisms that allow foreign corporations to sue sovereign governments before private arbitration panels for enacting environmental, labor, public health, or human rights regulations that affect corporate profits — ISDS mechanisms systematically subordinate democratic policy-making to corporate profit protection and must be prohibited from any agreement to which the United States is a party; (b) require a binding, publicly released human rights impact assessment completed before any agreement may be submitted to Congress for ratification, addressing effects on labor rights, environmental conditions, access to essential medicines, and affected communities in all signatory countries; and (c) require full Senate ratification under Article II of the Constitution — not authorization through trade promotion authority alone — for any agreement that includes binding dispute resolution mechanisms, investment chapters, or provisions that constrain domestic regulatory authority. Trade promotion authority procedures may be used for implementing legislation but may not substitute for the constitutional treaty ratification process when agreements constrain domestic sovereign authority.

ISDS provisions have been invoked to challenge public health measures, environmental regulations, tobacco advertising restrictions, and pharmaceutical pricing policies. The UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) reported more than 1,200 known ISDS cases globally as of 2022. The constitutional distinction between treaties requiring Senate ratification and executive agreements is directly implicated when trade agreements constrain domestic regulatory authority through private international arbitration.

This position requires the Treasury Department to automatically designate any country meeting objective criteria as a currency manipulator within 90 days and impose countervailing duties (extra tariffs) within 30 more days — with no exceptions for diplomatic or strategic reasons without written notice to Congress. Currency manipulation artificially raises the cost of U.S. exports and suppresses domestic manufacturing jobs; enforcement cannot be quietly waived for political relationships.

Mandate automatic currency manipulator designation and countervailing duties within 90 days with no geopolitical waiver without Congressional notification

Treasury must designate any country meeting the statutory criteria for currency manipulation — persistent large-scale currency intervention to prevent exchange rate appreciation and gain unfair competitive advantage in trade — within 90 days of a finding that those criteria are met, and must impose countervailing currency duties proportionate to the degree of manipulation within 30 days of designation. No executive waiver of designation or duty imposition may be granted for geopolitical, diplomatic, or strategic reasons without prior written notification to Congress specifying the specific basis for waiver, the expected duration, and the alternative mechanism through which the unfair trade practice will be addressed. Waivers must expire automatically after 12 months unless Congress affirmatively authorizes extension. The Treasury Department's annual currency monitoring report must be subject to independent external review and may not be delayed for diplomatic timing. Currency manipulation by major trading partners artificially raises the cost of U.S. exports and suppresses domestic manufacturing employment; enforcement must not be sacrificed to strategic relationships.

Treasury's authority to designate currency manipulators under the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015 has been exercised inconsistently and has been subordinated to geopolitical considerations, including in bilateral negotiations with China. The Peterson Institute for International Economics and other economists have documented how currency undervaluation functions as a trade subsidy that cannot be offset by tariffs alone without countervailing duty authority.

This position prohibits any U.S. trade agreement from including provisions that prevent developing countries from producing cheaper generic versions of life-saving medicines — a practice known as compulsory licensing. It also bans corporations from using arbitration panels to challenge a government's decision to authorize generic medicine production, and requires USTR to stop pressuring countries to adopt stricter pharmaceutical patent rules than international law requires.

Prohibit trade agreements from restricting compulsory licensing of essential medicines and ban U.S. pressure on other countries to extend pharmaceutical patent protections beyond TRIPS minimums

No U.S. trade agreement may include any provision that: (a) prohibits or restricts any signatory country from issuing compulsory licenses for essential medicines under the TRIPS Agreement and the 2001 Doha Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health; (b) extends pharmaceutical patent terms or data exclusivity periods beyond the minimum standards required by the WTO TRIPS Agreement; (c) restricts a country's authority to determine what constitutes a national emergency or extreme urgency for purposes of compulsory licensing; or (d) enables pharmaceutical companies to use investor-state arbitration mechanisms to challenge a government's exercise of compulsory licensing authority. The United States Trade Representative must cease diplomatic pressure on developing countries to adopt TRIPS-plus pharmaceutical patent provisions in bilateral negotiations, and must affirmatively support the right of all countries to use the full flexibilities of the TRIPS Agreement to protect public health. Private pharmaceutical company lobbying must not determine U.S. trade negotiating positions on compulsory licensing.

The 2001 Doha Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health affirmed that TRIPS must be interpreted to promote access to medicines and allow compulsory licensing. U.S. trade negotiators have historically sought TRIPS-plus provisions in bilateral trade agreements that extend pharmaceutical monopoly periods and undermine developing countries' ability to produce affordable generic medicines — contributing to access barriers for HIV/AIDS, hepatitis C, and other treatments. Access to essential medicines is a human right recognized under ICESCR Article 12.

This position makes U.S. importers strictly liable for goods produced with forced labor anywhere in their supply chain — even if they claim they didn't know. Workers employed under forced labor conditions have the right to sue U.S. importers directly in federal court for actual damages and disgorgement of profits; importers found liable face at least a five-year import ban and at least a three-year bar from federal contracts.

Establish strict importer liability for goods produced with forced labor and a private right of action for harmed workers in U.S. federal courts

U.S. importers must be strictly liable — without any requirement to prove knowledge or intent — for goods imported into the United States that were produced, in whole or in part, through forced labor as defined under ILO Convention No. 29. Strict liability must attach from the point of customs clearance and must not be fully discharged by importer due diligence alone; due diligence may reduce civil damages but does not eliminate liability where forced labor is established. Workers employed in conditions of forced labor anywhere in the supply chain that produced goods entering U.S. commerce must have a private right of action in U.S. federal district court against the U.S. importer, with remedies including actual damages, disgorgement of profits attributable to forced labor production, injunctive relief, and attorneys' fees. Importers found liable must be subject to mandatory customs exclusion orders of no less than five years and debarment from federal procurement for no less than three years. No sovereign immunity defense may be raised by a foreign state-owned enterprise importing goods produced with forced labor under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act's commercial activity exception.

Current U.S. law (19 U.S.C. § 1307) prohibits importation of goods made with forced labor but enforcement is customs-based with no private right of action for affected workers and no mechanism for workers to seek individual remedies. Strict importer liability shifts the structural incentive: importers must thoroughly vet supply chains or face liability, rather than relying on CBP's limited capacity to detect forced labor violations at the border. This complements the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act framework extended globally under FPOL-TRDS-0003.

This position requires Congress to write U.S. Paris Agreement climate targets into federal statute so they cannot be reversed by executive order when administrations change. Making emissions reduction targets into binding law ensures that U.S. international climate commitments are not aspirational goals that can be abandoned the moment political leadership shifts.

Codify U.S. Paris Agreement NDC emissions targets into federal statute to survive executive reversals

The United States withdrew from the Paris Agreement under the Trump administration in November 2020 and rejoined under the Biden administration in February 2021 — a reversal that required only executive action and no congressional vote in either direction. This structural vulnerability allows any future administration to again withdraw from or effectively nullify U.S. climate commitments through unilateral executive action, with no democratic check. Congress must enact legislation codifying U.S. Nationally Determined Contributions under the Paris Agreement as legally binding federal statutory targets, with mandatory annual reporting to Congress on progress, enforceable sector-by-sector emissions reduction benchmarks established through formal rulemaking with public comment, and a clear legal mechanism for updating targets upward as science and technology require. Withdrawal from the Paris Agreement or any successor international climate framework must require affirmative Congressional authorization by a two-thirds supermajority of both chambers — the same threshold as treaty ratification under Article II of the Constitution. The implementing statute must vest primary enforcement authority in the Environmental Protection Agency, subject to judicial review under the Administrative Procedure Act, with mandatory injunctive relief available to any State, unit of local government, or citizen demonstrating material harm from federal non-compliance. Secondary enforcement authority must vest in any state that has adopted a climate plan consistent with U.S. NDC targets, permitting such states to enforce federal standards within their jurisdiction. Treating climate commitments as executive-discretion policy subject to reversal every four years is structurally incompatible with the 30-year infrastructure and industrial planning horizons that genuine climate transition requires, and with the international credibility the U.S. needs to demand accelerated action from China, India, and other major emitters.

1. Paris Agreement, Dec. 12, 2015, T.I.A.S. No. 16-1104, 55 I.L.M. 743. https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement ↩
2. United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. (2023). Global stocktake — COP28 outcomes. UNFCCC. https://unfccc.int/topics/global-stocktake ↩

This position requires Congress to appropriate at least $10 billion per year as mandatory foreign aid specifically for the international Loss and Damage Fund — money to help developing nations cope with climate harms they can no longer adapt to, such as complete loss of coastlines, agricultural systems, or freshwater sources. This is a standing legal obligation, not a discretionary foreign aid line that can be cut.

Establish the Loss and Damage Fund as a $10 billion per year statutory U.S. foreign aid appropriation

At COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh in 2022, the international community agreed to establish a dedicated Loss and Damage Fund to provide financial support to countries most vulnerable to climate impacts — small island developing states, sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and other low-lying coastal developing nations — for harms that can no longer be prevented or adapted to, including permanent loss of land, livelihoods, and cultural heritage to sea-level rise, extreme weather events, and desertification. The United States, as the world's largest historical cumulative emitter of greenhouse gases since industrialization, bears a special obligation to this fund that is not discretionary and must not be subject to the political volatility of annual appropriations cycles or executive-branch whim. Congress must: (a) codify U.S. participation in and contribution to the Loss and Damage Fund as a mandatory annual appropriation of no less than $10 billion per year, structured as grants rather than loans to countries with the least historical responsibility for climate change and the least capacity to bear its costs; (b) require that contributions be delivered through an independent international mechanism with transparent governance, equitable developing-country representation on its governing board, and independent auditing — not channeled through bilateral U.S. programs subject to executive political manipulation; (c) mandate annual public reporting on fund disbursements, recipient countries, uses, and independently verified impact assessments; and (d) require that U.S. representatives to the fund's governance body prioritize the most climate-vulnerable countries and the most severe documented losses over geopolitical alignment considerations. Climate finance to the Loss and Damage Fund is not charitable giving — it is partial discharge of a historical debt owed to nations that contributed minimally to the problem but bear its most devastating consequences.

1. United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. (2022). COP27 — Sharm el-Sheikh implementation plan: Establishment of funding arrangements for loss and damage. UNFCCC. https://unfccc.int/cop27 ↩
2. United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. (2023). First meeting of the transitional committee on loss and damage. UNFCCC. https://unfccc.int/loss-and-damage-fund-transitional-committee ↩

This position replaces the 1973 War Powers Resolution with a stronger law requiring Congress to affirmatively authorize any military action within 30 days of it beginning. The current resolution's mechanisms have allowed presidents to wage undeclared wars for decades; a new law must require a real congressional vote to continue any military engagement rather than allowing silent approval by inaction.

Replace the War Powers Resolution with a new War Powers Act requiring affirmative congressional authorization within 30 days

The War Powers Resolution of 1973 (50 U.S.C. §§ 1541–1548) was designed to restore congressional control over the decision to go to war following the Vietnam War's undeclared escalation. It has been systematically violated or circumvented by every president since its passage. The Resolution's core structural defect is the consultation-and-withdrawal trigger mechanism: presidents have consistently denied that the Resolution applies to their actions, and federal courts have largely declined to adjudicate the question under the political question doctrine. The 60-day withdrawal trigger has never once been invoked to actually terminate a military engagement. Congress must repeal the War Powers Resolution and replace it with a new War Powers Act that directly addresses these structural failures. The new Act must: (a) require affirmative congressional authorization within 30 days of any initiation of offensive military action — not a withdrawal trigger after inaction, but a positive legislative vote to continue; (b) provide that absent affirmative authorization by day 31, all appropriated funds for the specific operation automatically expire by operation of law, with no executive discretion to continue operations through reprogramming or other mechanisms; (c) define "offensive military action" broadly to include airstrikes, naval bombardment, drone strike campaigns, cyber operations causing significant physical damage, and any deployment of special operations forces in a combat role; (d) require a written presidential certification transmitted to Congress within 24 hours of any initiation of hostilities, specifically identifying the statutory authority claimed; and (e) vest standing in any member of Congress to bring suit in federal district court with expedited jurisdiction in the D.C. Circuit to enforce the Act's requirements. The constitutional allocation of war-making authority to Congress under Article I is not a procedural technicality — it is the most fundamental democratic check on the executive's power to commit the nation to armed conflict.

1. War Powers Resolution, Pub. L. 93-148, 50 U.S.C. §§ 1541–1548 (1973). https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/chapter-33 ↩

This position requires the repeal of the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) — used to justify military operations in dozens of countries for over two decades — and the 2002 AUMF used to authorize the Iraq War. Every ongoing and future use of military force must be authorized by a specific, time-limited congressional authorization that names the actual enemy and geographic scope, not a blank check written more than two decades ago.

Repeal the 2001 and 2002 AUMFs and require specific, time-limited authorization for all ongoing and future military force

The Authorization for Use of Military Force of 2001 (Pub. L. 107-40), passed three days after the September 11 attacks, authorized the President to use force against those responsible for the attacks and those who harbored them. Over two decades, successive administrations stretched this single-page authorization to justify military action in at least 19 countries against groups that did not exist in September 2001 — a breathtaking expansion of executive war-making authority never contemplated by the Congress that voted for it. The 2002 Iraq AUMF (Pub. L. 107-243) authorized the Iraq invasion on the basis of claims about weapons of mass destruction that proved false; it has continued to serve as claimed legal cover for U.S. military activity in Iraq and Syria decades after the stated justification ceased to exist. Both AUMFs must be repealed by statute, with an effective date that provides 180 days for Congress to enact specific successor authorizations for any ongoing operations genuinely requiring continued authorization. All successor authorizations and all future AUMFs must: (a) specifically identify the enemy or organization authorized to be targeted, with no open-ended descriptions permitting executive expansion to new groups; (b) specify the geographic scope of authorized operations, permitting no extraterritorial expansion without renewed congressional authorization; (c) expire automatically no later than three years from enactment unless affirmatively renewed by Congress through the regular legislative process; (d) prohibit use as authority for operations against groups, in countries, or in pursuit of objectives not specifically named in the authorization; and (e) require the Office of Legal Counsel to provide a classified opinion — transmitted to the full armed services and foreign relations committees of both chambers — justifying any new application of existing authorization. Open-ended blank checks for executive war-making are unconstitutional in practice and must end.

1. Authorization for Use of Military Force, Pub. L. 107-40, 115 Stat. 224 (2001). https://www.congress.gov/107/plaws/publ40/PLAW-107publ40.pdf ↩
2. Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002, Pub. L. 107-243, 116 Stat. 1498 (2002). https://www.congress.gov/107/plaws/publ243/PLAW-107publ243.pdf ↩

This position requires Congress to receive full classified briefings before the U.S. makes any sustained military commitment abroad, ensuring lawmakers understand what they are authorizing before troops are deployed. It also requires all military authorizations to include automatic expiration dates, so military operations must be periodically reauthorized by Congress rather than continuing indefinitely by default.

Require full congressional classified briefings before sustained military commitments and establish automatic AUMF sunset

The current practice of restricting classified intelligence briefings on military operations to the "Gang of Eight" — the eight most senior congressional leaders — deprives the vast majority of elected representatives of the information they need to exercise meaningful oversight of the war powers they are constitutionally required to authorize. When members vote on war funding, authorization resolutions, or oversight measures, they routinely do so with less information than the executive branch provided to a handful of colleagues selected by party leadership. This is democratic accountability in form but not in substance. Congress must require the executive branch to provide a classified briefing to the full membership of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senate Foreign Relations Committee, House Armed Services Committee, and House Foreign Affairs Committee within 48 hours of any initiation of sustained military operations, and to provide updated briefings within 30 days whenever the scope, geographic extent, rules of engagement, or casualty figures of an ongoing operation materially change. No classification level, executive privilege claim, or sensitive compartmented information designation may be used to restrict these required briefings from committee members with appropriate clearances. In addition, every Authorization for Use of Military Force — including any AUMF enacted under the War Powers Act replacement required by FPOL-WARP-0001 — must contain a mandatory three-year automatic sunset provision that cannot be extended by executive action, executive order, or any mechanism other than affirmative congressional renewal through the regular legislative process with full floor debate and recorded vote. An authorization that Congress cannot affirmatively renew is an authorization that no longer commands democratic legitimacy, and the military operation it authorizes must end.

1. National Security Act of 1947, 50 U.S.C. § 3091 (congressional oversight of intelligence activities). https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/3091 ↩

This position requires the Senate to ratify CEDAW — the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women — making the U.S. one of only a handful of countries that has not done so. It also requires the U.S. to rejoin the UN Human Rights Council and pay its full dues, so the U.S. can engage constructively rather than standing outside the international human rights system.

Ratify CEDAW and re-join and fully fund the UN Human Rights Council

The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) — adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1979 and ratified by 189 states parties — is the only major UN human rights treaty to which the United States is not a party. The United States signed CEDAW in July 1980; the Senate has never brought it to a ratification vote despite 44 years of inaction, making the U.S. one of a handful of countries globally, alongside Iran, Somalia, and Sudan, that have not ratified the foundational international legal instrument protecting women's rights. CEDAW obligates states parties to take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women in political and public life, education, employment, healthcare, marriage and family law, and legal capacity. The United States invokes women's rights as justification for military and diplomatic engagement abroad — it cannot credibly do so while refusing to ratify the treaty that codifies those rights. The Senate must ratify CEDAW without substantive reservations that would gut its core obligations. Separately, the United States must formally rejoin the UN Human Rights Council with a commitment to: (a) pay all assessed contributions in full and on time; (b) engage constructively and substantively with Council processes, including voting on resolutions that identify specific country situations; (c) submit to and respond substantively in writing to Universal Periodic Review recommendations regarding U.S. human rights practices; and (d) support, rather than undermine, Council investigations of rights-violating governments regardless of strategic relationships. Withdrawal from or defunding of the UNHRC cedes the field to governments hostile to human rights and makes accountability investigations for the worst atrocities harder to sustain.

1. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, G.A. Res. 34/180, 34 U.N. GAOR Supp. No. 46, at 193, U.N. Doc. A/34/46 (Dec. 18, 1979). https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/convention-elimination-all-forms-discrimination-against-women ↩

This position requires the U.S. to pay all outstanding debts owed to the United Nations — the result of years of withholding dues as a political tactic — and to pass legislation requiring timely payment of all assessed UN contributions going forward. Using financial leverage to bully international institutions undermines the rule-based international order the U.S. claims to support.

Pay all UN arrears and enact legislation requiring timely payment of all UN assessed contributions

The United States has accumulated substantial arrears in its assessed contributions to the United Nations regular budget and peacekeeping operations — amounts that by independent estimates have exceeded $1 billion — making the U.S. one of the largest debtors to the UN system despite being the world's largest economy. The practice of using assessed contribution payments as political leverage — withholding legally obligated payments to specific UN agencies, programs, or operations as punitive measures or coercive tools — is a form of institutional sabotage. It unilaterally defunds international operations the U.S. itself voted to create and that serve U.S. security interests, while the U.S. retains the voting rights and influence that those contributions formally fund. Under Article 19 of the UN Charter, a member state that falls two years behind in assessed contributions may lose its General Assembly voting rights — a consequence that would further damage U.S. international standing. The U.S. has periodically reduced contributions to UNESCO, UNRWA, and WHO as punitive policy measures, without authorizing legislation and with severe consequences for the civilian populations those agencies serve. Congress must: (a) authorize and appropriate funds sufficient to retire all outstanding UN arrears within three fiscal years; (b) enact legislation requiring that all UN assessed contributions — regular budget, peacekeeping operations, and specialized agency assessments — be paid in full no later than the due date specified in each assessment resolution; (c) prohibit any future executive-branch withholding of assessed UN contributions without specific, prior congressional authorization identifying the amount, duration, and justification of any withholding; and (d) require the Secretary of State to report annually to Congress on the status of all assessed UN contributions and any pending arrears with explanations.

1. United Nations Charter, art. 17, 19, June 26, 1945, 59 Stat. 1031, T.S. No. 993. https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter/chapter-4 ↩

This position requires the U.S. to re-submit to the compulsory jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice — the world's main court for resolving disputes between countries — and to strengthen engagement with other international rule-of-law institutions. The U.S. withdrew from ICJ compulsory jurisdiction in 1986 following a ruling against it over its actions in Nicaragua; this position reverses that withdrawal.

Re-submit to ICJ compulsory jurisdiction and strengthen U.S. engagement with international rule-of-law bodies

The United States accepted compulsory jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice under Article 36(2) of the ICJ Statute in 1946 and withdrew from that acceptance in 1986, following an adverse judgment in Nicaragua v. United States finding that U.S. support for the Contra rebels and mining of Nicaraguan harbors violated customary international law. The message sent by that withdrawal was unmistakable: the United States accepts international adjudication when it wins and abandons it when it loses. This posture is fundamentally incompatible with genuine rule-of-law leadership and provides cover for every authoritarian government that similarly selects its international legal obligations based on expected outcomes. The United States must re-submit to ICJ compulsory jurisdiction under Article 36(2) with narrowly tailored reservations protecting only specifically defined areas of genuine national security sensitivity — not reservations so broad as to exclude the categories of cases most likely to be brought. Re-acceptance must be accompanied by a commitment to: (a) comply with all ICJ advisory opinions and judgments to the extent compatible with the U.S. Constitution; (b) actively use the ICJ as a complainant to enforce international law obligations against other states; (c) fund and staff the Court at levels adequate to its caseload; and (d) cease all actions — including threats against ICC officials, sanctions on ICC personnel, and refusals to cooperate with legitimate international legal processes — that undermine international tribunals. The U.S. cannot credibly advocate for a rules-based international order while exempting itself from the jurisdiction of the court created to adjudicate disputes under that order.

1. Statute of the International Court of Justice, art. 36(2), June 26, 1945, 59 Stat. 1055, T.S. No. 993. https://www.icj-cij.org/statute ↩
2. Military and Paramilitary Activities in and Against Nicaragua (Nicar. v. U.S.), 1986 I.C.J. 14 (June 27). https://www.icj-cij.org/case/70 ↩

This position requires the U.S. to restore full support for the International Criminal Court — the permanent international court for prosecuting genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity — and to repeal the American Service-Members' Protection Act, a law that authorized the President to use military force to free any American held by the ICC. The U.S. must cooperate fully with all ICC investigations, including those involving allies, and must permanently stop threatening or sanctioning ICC officials.

Restore full U.S. support for the ICC, repeal the American Service-Members' Protection Act, and cooperate fully with ICC investigations including those involving U.S. allies

The United States must restore full governmental support for the International Criminal Court as the permanent international institution for prosecuting genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Congress must repeal the American Service-Members' Protection Act (22 U.S.C. §§ 7421–7433) — which authorizes the President to use military force to free U.S. personnel held by the ICC, prohibits U.S. military assistance to ICC member states that do not sign bilateral immunity agreements, and systematically impedes U.S. cooperation with ICC proceedings. The U.S. must cooperate fully with all ICC investigations and proceedings, including investigations involving nationals of U.S. allies, and must permanently cease all sanctions, threats, and diplomatic pressure against ICC officials, prosecutors, and staff conducting legitimate international legal proceedings. The United States must work toward accession to the Rome Statute, with any reservations narrowly tailored to genuine constitutional requirements — not designed to shield U.S. officials or allied officials from accountability for documented atrocities. A rules-based international order cannot coexist with impunity for atrocity crimes committed by powerful states.

1. American Service-Members' Protection Act, 22 U.S.C. §§ 7421–7433 (2002). https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/22/chapter-81 ↩
2. Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, July 17, 1998, 2187 U.N.T.S. 90. https://www.icc-cpi.int/sites/default/files/RS-Eng.pdf ↩

This position requires the U.S. to restore full membership in and funding for UNESCO — the UN agency that supports education, science, press freedom, and cultural heritage — paying all outstanding arrears within three years. It also requires the U.S. to support reform of the UN Security Council to add permanent members reflecting today's world, and to commit to not using its veto to block international responses to documented mass atrocities like genocide.

Restore full U.S. UNESCO membership and funding, and support UN Security Council reform including expanded permanent membership and veto limits on mass atrocity situations

The United States must restore full membership in and funding of UNESCO — paying all outstanding arrears within three fiscal years — as a strategic investment in science diplomacy, cultural heritage protection, press freedom, and international educational cooperation. On Security Council reform: the United States must support a formal process to expand UNSC permanent membership to include representative states from Africa, Latin America, and South and Southeast Asia, reflecting that a Security Council whose permanent membership reflects the 1945 geopolitical configuration lacks the legitimacy required for 21st-century collective security. The U.S. must support adoption of a binding Veto Initiative under which UNSC permanent members commit to refrain from using the veto to block collective action on credibly documented mass atrocity situations — genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes against civilian populations. The Veto Initiative commitment must apply equally to all permanent members; no state's geopolitical interests may be permitted to shield ongoing atrocity crimes from international response.

1. United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization Constitution, Nov. 16, 1945, 4 U.N.T.S. 275. https://www.unesco.org/en/legal-affairs/constitution ↩
2. United Nations General Assembly. (2022). Standing mandate for a General Assembly debate when a veto is cast in the Security Council, U.N. Doc. A/RES/76/262. https://undocs.org/A/RES/76/262 ↩

This position requires a formal human rights impact assessment — evaluating how proposed sanctions will affect the civilian population — before the U.S. can impose any new broad economic sanctions on an entire country's economy. Sanctions intended to pressure governments can end up harming ordinary citizens far more than the officials they target; this review process ensures policymakers weigh civilian harm before acting.

Require a human rights impact assessment before imposing any new broad sectoral sanctions on a civilian economy

U.S. sanctions regimes — administered by the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) primarily under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. §§ 1701–1708) and related statutory authorities — currently affect more than 40 countries and thousands of designated individuals and entities. Comprehensive and broad sectoral sanctions that restrict trade, financial flows, and investment across entire economies frequently harm civilian populations more than they constrain the targeted regimes or their leadership. The governments of Venezuela, Iran, Cuba, and North Korea have maintained power for decades under comprehensive U.S. sanctions while their civilian populations bear the economic consequences — through shortages of medicine, food, and essential goods, through currency collapse and hyperinflation, and through the systematic degradation of healthcare and infrastructure systems. Before imposing any new broad sectoral sanctions on a national economy, Congress must require a mandatory, publicly released human rights impact assessment prepared by the State Department's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, reviewed by an independent expert panel that includes UN human rights experts and independent economists, and transmitted to Congress at least 30 days before sanctions take effect. The assessment must: (a) evaluate the projected impact on civilian access to medicine, food, healthcare, and basic financial services; (b) identify specific mitigation measures, including humanitarian carve-outs and OFAC licensing procedures, that will protect civilian access; (c) establish measurable baseline metrics against which ongoing civilian harm will be publicly reported annually; and (d) set out the specific policy objective and the evidence-based theory of how the sanctions will achieve that objective without causing disproportionate civilian harm.

1. International Emergency Economic Powers Act, 50 U.S.C. §§ 1701–1708 (1977). https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/chapter-35 ↩
2. Office of Foreign Assets Control. (2024). Sanctions programs and country information. U.S. Department of the Treasury. https://ofac.treas.gov/sanctions-programs-and-country-information ↩

This position requires that all U.S. sanctions regimes include unconditional exemptions allowing humanitarian aid — food, medicine, and medical equipment — to reach civilian populations without restriction. It also sets a two-year automatic expiration date on all new sanctions, requiring Congress to affirmatively renew them or allow them to lapse, preventing sanctions from continuing indefinitely by default.

Mandate unconditional humanitarian carve-outs and a two-year congressional sunset for all new sanctions regimes

Two structural reforms are essential to prevent U.S. sanctions from functioning in practice as siege warfare against civilian populations. First, every U.S. sanctions regime — both existing and newly enacted — must contain mandatory, self-executing carve-outs for medicine, medical devices, food, agricultural goods, seeds, and humanitarian aid delivered through United Nations agencies, internationally recognized humanitarian organizations, and accredited NGOs. These carve-outs must require no discretionary OFAC license, no application, no fee, and no waiting period for covered categories. The current licensing system, which theoretically permits humanitarian goods while creating bureaucratic complexity and bank risk-aversion that effectively blocks them in practice, must be replaced with automatic statutory exemptions that are self-executing and unambiguous. Treasury must issue binding guidance clarifying that banks and financial intermediaries processing humanitarian transactions within the carve-out categories face no sanctions exposure, ensuring that de-risking by the financial sector does not nullify the carve-outs in practice. Second, all new sanctions regimes enacted after the effective date of this legislation must include a mandatory two-year sunset: the sanctions expire automatically by operation of law unless Congress affirmatively renews them through the regular legislative process within the two-year period. Sanctions that cannot survive a congressional renewal vote no longer reflect democratic will and should not remain in force. This requirement addresses the chronic problem of sanctions regimes persisting for decades through bureaucratic inertia long after their original justification has dissolved — a pattern currently visible in Cuba, Iran, and other country programs that have been continuously in effect, in some cases, for more than 60 years.

1. International Emergency Economic Powers Act, 50 U.S.C. §§ 1701–1708 (1977). https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/chapter-35 ↩

This position creates an independent Office of Sanctions Review empowered to evaluate whether existing sanctions are achieving their stated policy goals and assess their harm to civilian populations, with authority to recommend modifications or termination. It also prohibits secondary sanctions — which penalize companies in third countries for doing business with a sanctioned country — without specific congressional authorization.

Establish an independent Office of Sanctions Review and prohibit secondary sanctions without specific congressional authorization

Two additional structural reforms are required to bring U.S. sanctions policy into democratic accountability and international legal compliance. First, Congress must establish an independent Office of Sanctions Review within the Treasury Department — structurally separate from OFAC, with a Senate-confirmed director serving a fixed term removable only for cause — with the mandate to: (a) conduct annual public reviews of all active sanctions programs, assessing effectiveness against stated objectives, civilian harm, legal basis, and consistency with U.S. treaty obligations; (b) publish binding guidance on humanitarian carve-out implementation and investigate complaints from humanitarian organizations regarding sanctions-related blocking of legitimate transactions; (c) report publicly and to Congress on programs that have failed to achieve their policy objectives, whose civilian costs are demonstrably disproportionate to any measurable benefit, or that lack a clear and current legal basis; and (d) recommend to Congress sunset or modification of programs meeting these criteria. Second, secondary sanctions — measures that penalize third-country entities, governments, or individuals for conducting otherwise legal commercial or financial transactions with sanctioned nations — must be prohibited without specific, explicit congressional authorization for each individual sanctions program. Secondary sanctions effectively extend the reach of U.S. domestic law to the entire global financial system, threatening foreign companies, banks, and governments with U.S. consequences for complying with the laws of their own jurisdictions. This extraterritorial assertion of U.S. jurisdiction is deeply resented by allies and trading partners, routinely damages important bilateral relationships, undermines the WTO rules-based trading system, and in the long run accelerates the development of alternative financial infrastructure specifically designed to circumvent U.S. oversight — the opposite of its intended effect.

1. International Emergency Economic Powers Act, 50 U.S.C. §§ 1701–1708 (1977). https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/chapter-35 ↩

This position requires Congress to set a mandatory minimum of at least 125,000 refugee admissions per year — a floor that cannot be lowered by presidential executive order — and restores the Central American Minors program, which allowed children in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras to apply for refugee protection from inside their home countries rather than making a dangerous journey to the U.S. border.

Establish a statutory minimum refugee admissions floor of 125,000 annually and restore the Central American Minors program

The United States is a party to the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, which incorporates the core obligations of the 1951 Refugee Convention — including the obligation to protect persons fleeing persecution on grounds of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion. Under the Refugee Act of 1980, the President sets an annual refugee admissions ceiling through a consultative process with Congress. The Trump administration used this mechanism to reduce refugee admissions to a historic low of 18,000 in Fiscal Year 2020 — in the middle of the worst global displacement crisis in recorded human history, with more than 100 million people forcibly displaced worldwide — while the administration simultaneously created bureaucratic barriers that prevented even the announced low ceiling from being met. The executive admissions ceiling is structurally vulnerable: it allows a single administration to effectively suspend one of the most humanitarian functions of U.S. foreign and immigration policy with no legislative check. Congress must: (a) establish by statute a minimum refugee admissions floor of 125,000 annually — meaning the President may set a higher ceiling but may not reduce admissions below this floor regardless of executive preference; (b) require an affirmative act of Congress, not an executive proclamation, to reduce refugee admissions below the statutory floor; (c) fully fund and staff the Refugee Admissions Program, including U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services refugee processing capacity and Reception and Placement program funding, at levels sufficient to meet the statutory minimum; and (d) restore the Central American Minors program — which provided a safe, legal pathway for children in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras to apply for refugee or humanitarian parole status — with a statutory basis that places it beyond executive cancellation.

1. Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, Jan. 31, 1967, 19 U.S.T. 6223, 606 U.N.T.S. 267. https://www.unhcr.org/en-us/protocol-relating-to-the-status-of-refugees.html ↩
2. Refugee Act of 1980, Pub. L. 96-212, 94 Stat. 102 (1980). https://www.congress.gov/96/statute/STATUTE-94/STATUTE-94-Pg102.pdf ↩

This position codifies non-refoulement — the international legal rule that no person may be returned to a country where they would face torture or persecution — as an absolute statutory bar in U.S. law, with no exceptions for national security concerns in cases involving risk of torture. No claimed security interest can justify sending someone back to face torture.

Codify non-refoulement as an absolute statutory bar with no national security exception for torture

Non-refoulement — the prohibition on returning any person to a country where they would face persecution, torture, or other serious harm — is the cornerstone obligation of international refugee and human rights law, recognized in the 1951 Refugee Convention, the 1984 Convention Against Torture (CAT), and customary international law binding on all states regardless of treaty ratification. U.S. law provides non-refoulement protections in several statutory and regulatory provisions, but with gaps, exceptions, and executive discretion that have allowed administrations to return individuals to countries where credible harm is documented. The "particularly serious crime" exception — which allows removal of a refugee to a country of likely persecution if the person has been convicted of a particularly serious crime — has been interpreted expansively by executive agencies to cover offenses that international law would not place in this extreme category. The Convention Against Torture prohibition on return to torture, while nominally absolute in U.S. law, has been circumvented through the use of "diplomatic assurances" — unverifiable, legally unenforceable promises by receiving governments that the individual will not be tortured — that have proven worthless in documented cases. Congress must: (a) codify non-refoulement as an absolute statutory bar applicable to all removal proceedings, administrative and judicial, with no national security, public safety, or foreign policy exception for the prohibition against return to torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment; (b) eliminate diplomatic assurances as a legally cognizable basis for overriding a factual finding of substantial likelihood of torture; (c) narrow the "particularly serious crime" exception to only the most severe felony offenses, defined with reference to IHL and international human rights law standards rather than domestic prosecutorial categories; and (d) vest jurisdiction in federal circuit courts of appeals to review all non-refoulement determinations de novo on the facts as well as the law.

1. Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, art. 3, Dec. 10, 1984, 1465 U.N.T.S. 85. https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/convention-against-torture-and-other-cruel-inhuman-or-degrading ↩
2. Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, Jan. 31, 1967, 19 U.S.T. 6223, 606 U.N.T.S. 267. https://www.unhcr.org/en-us/protocol-relating-to-the-status-of-refugees.html ↩

This position requires the U.S. to fund the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) at a level covering at least 40% of its total global budget and to restore U.S. leadership in the global refugee resettlement system. The U.S. has historically been the world's largest resettler of refugees; this position requires it to reclaim that role and provide the financial support the international refugee system needs to function.

Fund UNHCR at no less than 40% of its global budget and restore U.S. global refugee resettlement leadership

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is the primary international body responsible for protecting and assisting the world's forcibly displaced people — currently more than 114 million people worldwide, the highest number in recorded history. UNHCR operates entirely on voluntary contributions from member states and faces a structural funding crisis: its budget is chronically and severely underfunded relative to the scale of displacement crises it must manage, leaving millions of refugees and internally displaced persons without adequate protection, shelter, food, healthcare, or legal status determination. The United States has historically been UNHCR's single largest donor, but its contributions as a proportion of total global need have not kept pace with the explosive growth in displacement driven in part by U.S. military interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya. Congress must establish by statute that the United States will contribute no less than 40% of UNHCR's total annual budget, funded through a mandatory non-discretionary appropriation not subject to sequestration, continuing resolution caps, or executive-branch withholding. This contribution level reflects both U.S. historical responsibility for displacement — including in countries destabilized by demonstrable U.S. military and covert action — and its unique capacity as the world's largest economy. Beyond financial contributions, Congress must codify U.S. resettlement commitments consistent with FPOL-RFGE-0001's 125,000 annual floor, and must require the State Department to actively encourage other high-income countries to increase resettlement quotas through bilateral diplomatic engagement, capacity-building assistance for resettlement program development, and active participation in multilateral burden-sharing frameworks. Resettlement and UNHCR funding are not discretionary expressions of generosity — they are legal obligations the U.S. voluntarily undertook under the Protocol and must honor.

1. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. (2024). Global trends: Forced displacement 2023. UNHCR. https://www.unhcr.org/global-trends ↩
2. Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, Jan. 31, 1967, 19 U.S.T. 6223, 606 U.N.T.S. 267. https://www.unhcr.org/en-us/protocol-relating-to-the-status-of-refugees.html ↩

This position requires Congress to pass a law declaring that the U.S. will not be the first to use nuclear weapons under any circumstances — and that nuclear weapons may only be used in response to a nuclear attack on the U.S. or its allies. The law must also keep deployed nuclear warhead numbers within New START Treaty limits and prohibit development of low-yield tactical nuclear weapons specifically designed to make limited nuclear use seem more feasible.

Commit to No First Use of nuclear weapons by statute, reduce deployed warheads to New START levels, and resume multilateral arms control negotiations

Congress must enact a statutory No First Use policy declaring that the United States will not be the first to use nuclear weapons under any circumstances, and that nuclear weapons may be used only in retaliation for a nuclear attack on the United States or its treaty allies. No First Use must be enacted by statute — not executive declaration — so that it may not be reversed by executive order. Pending negotiation of a new multilateral nuclear arms control treaty, the United States must maintain deployed strategic warheads at or below New START Treaty ceilings and must not deploy nuclear warheads or delivery systems whose primary purpose is to lower the nuclear threshold — including low-yield warheads specifically designed to make limited nuclear use more operationally thinkable. The U.S. must resume bilateral arms control negotiations with Russia and initiate multilateral arms control talks including China, the United Kingdom, and France with the goal of verifiable, time-bound reductions in all nuclear arsenals. No nuclear modernization program that lowers the nuclear threshold — reducing the yield, increasing the precision, or extending the range of tactical nuclear options — may proceed without affirmative congressional authorization with specific findings that the program does not increase the risk of nuclear use.

The New START Treaty limited deployed strategic warheads to 1,550 per side; Russia suspended its participation in 2023. No First Use declarations reduce the risk of misinterpretation of conventional military actions as nuclear threats and lower the risk of nuclear use in regional conflicts. The W76-2 low-yield submarine-launched warhead, deployed in 2020, was specifically designed to lower the nuclear threshold. Current U.S. nuclear posture doctrine explicitly does not rule out first use of nuclear weapons.

This position requires the Senate to ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), which the U.S. signed in 1996 but never ratified — preventing the treaty from entering into force globally because U.S. ratification is required. Congress must also pass a law imposing automatic, comprehensive sanctions on any country that conducts a nuclear test after enactment, with no presidential waiver allowed.

Ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty and impose automatic comprehensive sanctions on any state that conducts a nuclear explosive test

The Senate must ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), which the United States signed in September 1996 but has not ratified, with the result that the CTBT has not entered into force because the U.S. is one of eight Annex 2 states whose ratification is required. The U.S. must not conduct nuclear tests or subcritical experiments designed to validate qualitatively new warhead designs. Separately, Congress must enact legislation imposing automatic, comprehensive sanctions — including suspension of all civilian nuclear cooperation agreements, all military assistance, all Foreign Military Sales, and all preferential trade treatment — on any nation that conducts a nuclear explosive test after the effective date of enactment. These sanctions must be self-executing, triggered by a finding of nuclear testing by the Director of National Intelligence, and must admit no presidential waiver authority. Nuclear testing by any state — ally or adversary — undermines global non-proliferation norms and must be met with a credible and automatic international response regardless of geopolitical relationship.

1. Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, Sept. 10, 1996, S. Treaty Doc. 105-28. https://www.ctbto.org/the-treaty/treaty-text ↩

This position requires the U.S. to substantially increase funding to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the global body responsible for inspecting nuclear facilities and verifying that countries are not secretly building weapons. Full-scope IAEA safeguards covering all nuclear materials and facilities must be a non-waivable condition of all U.S. civilian nuclear cooperation agreements, with no exceptions for strategic or commercial reasons.

Substantially increase IAEA funding and independence, require full-scope safeguards for all civilian nuclear cooperation, and oppose nuclear cooperation with non-NPT states

The United States must substantially increase both assessed and voluntary contributions to the International Atomic Energy Agency, ensuring the IAEA has the financial and technical resources required to conduct inspections, investigate suspected safeguards violations, and deploy Additional Protocol verification tools across all member states. Full-scope IAEA safeguards covering all nuclear material and facilities — not merely declared facilities — must be a non-negotiable, statutory condition of all U.S. bilateral civilian nuclear cooperation agreements under Section 123 of the Atomic Energy Act. The United States must not enter into civilian nuclear cooperation agreements with states that are not parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty or that have not accepted full-scope IAEA safeguards with an Additional Protocol. No exception may be granted for strategic, commercial, or diplomatic reasons; the non-proliferation value of consistent, universally applied standards materially exceeds any short-term bilateral benefit. Existing 123 agreements with non-NPT states must be reviewed and may not be renewed unless the partner state accepts full-scope safeguards.

The IAEA's safeguards budget has chronically lagged the growth of civilian nuclear programs it must supervise. The 2005 U.S.-India civilian nuclear cooperation agreement — which provided access to civilian nuclear technology to India despite its non-NPT status and active nuclear weapons program — is widely cited by non-proliferation experts as having damaged global non-proliferation norms by demonstrating that non-NPT states can access civilian nuclear cooperation without disarmament commitments. The Additional Protocol strengthens IAEA verification authority significantly beyond the Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement.

This position requires that any U.S. citizen — including military personnel, civilian contractors, intelligence officers, and government officials — who commits war crimes or crimes against humanity must be subject to prosecution in U.S. federal courts, regardless of where the crimes occurred or what official position they held. Official status cannot be used as a defense, and the statute of limitations is extended to 20 years from when the victim could reasonably have known about the offense.

Require domestic prosecution of U.S. nationals who commit war crimes regardless of location, eliminate official-act immunity for atrocity crimes, and extend the statute of limitations to 20 years

All U.S. nationals — including active-duty military personnel, civilian contractors, intelligence officers, and government officials — who commit war crimes, crimes against humanity, or serious violations of the laws of armed conflict must be subject to prosecution in U.S. federal courts regardless of where the acts were committed. No immunity may be claimed for official acts that constitute war crimes or crimes against humanity; official status at the time of commission may not be raised as a defense to criminal prosecution. The statute of limitations for war crimes and crimes against humanity prosecutable under U.S. law must be extended to 20 years from the date of the act, or from the date the victim or their representative knew or could reasonably have known of the offense, whichever is later. Prosecution must not be conditioned on a foreign country's inability or unwillingness to prosecute; U.S. federal jurisdiction is independent and concurrent with any foreign jurisdiction. Criminal prosecution must be available alongside a private right of action in federal court for survivors and their families to seek civil damages and injunctive relief against individual perpetrators.

The War Crimes Act (18 U.S.C. § 2441) criminalizes grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions by or against U.S. nationals, but coverage and enforcement have been severely limited in practice. No U.S. official or military officer has been prosecuted for war crimes in connection with the post-9/11 conflicts, despite documented detainee abuse, the CIA torture program, and multiple civilian casualty incidents involving U.S. forces. Universal and domestic jurisdiction for war crimes is a principle of customary international law codified in the Rome Statute and the Geneva Conventions' common Article 3.

This position requires the U.S. to ratify the Convention on Cluster Munitions and immediately ban the production, use, transfer, and stockpiling of cluster munitions — weapons that scatter smaller explosive submunitions over wide areas, many of which fail to detonate and continue killing civilians, especially children, for decades after conflicts end. All U.S. cluster munition stockpiles must be destroyed within eight years, and the U.S. must increase funding for clearance and victim assistance in countries contaminated by U.S.-supplied cluster munitions.

Ratify the Convention on Cluster Munitions and ban production, stockpiling, transfer, and use with verified destruction of all U.S. stockpiles within 8 years

The United States must ratify the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM) and must, upon ratification: (a) permanently ban the production, stockpiling, transfer, and use of all cluster munitions by U.S. forces, contractors, and any recipient of U.S. military assistance; (b) cease immediately all transfers of cluster munitions to any foreign government or non-state actor regardless of claimed military necessity; (c) develop, fund, and publicly report on a verified stockpile destruction plan completing elimination of all U.S. cluster munition stockpiles within 8 years of ratification; and (d) substantially increase funding for cluster munition clearance and victim assistance in countries contaminated by U.S.-supplied cluster munitions, including Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Iraq, and Yemen. The ban must be self-executing upon ratification and must admit no national security exception or temporary waiver. Cluster munitions, which disperse submunitions over wide areas with dud rates that create de facto landmines, cause disproportionate civilian casualties long after conflicts end and must be prohibited as indiscriminate weapons under international humanitarian law.

1. Convention on Cluster Munitions, May 30, 2008, 2688 U.N.T.S. 39. https://www.clusterconvention.org/convention/text ↩

This position requires the U.S. to ratify the Mine Ban Treaty (Ottawa Treaty), immediately ban exports of anti-personnel landmines, and destroy all U.S. stockpiles within four years of ratification. Landmines are indiscriminate weapons that continue killing civilians — disproportionately children — for decades after wars end; the U.S. must also substantially increase contributions to international landmine clearance and survivor assistance in heavily contaminated countries.

Ratify the Ottawa Treaty banning anti-personnel landmines, destroy all U.S. stockpiles within 4 years, and impose an immediate export ban effective upon enactment

The United States must ratify the Mine Ban Treaty (Ottawa Treaty) and must, upon enactment of the ratification legislation: (a) impose an immediate permanent ban on the export and transfer of anti-personnel landmines effective on the date of enactment — before the treaty's formal entry into force for the U.S. — to prevent any transitional period during which transfers could continue; (b) permanently ban the production, stockpiling, and use of all anti-personnel landmines by U.S. forces and contractors; (c) complete verified destruction of all U.S. anti-personnel landmine stockpiles within 4 years of ratification; and (d) substantially increase U.S. contributions to international landmine clearance, mine risk education, and survivor assistance programs in countries contaminated by landmines including Afghanistan, Cambodia, Angola, Mozambique, and Colombia. Anti-personnel landmines are indiscriminate weapons that continue killing and maiming civilians — disproportionately children — for decades after conflicts end. No military utility argument may override the obligation to protect civilian populations from inherently indiscriminate weapons.

1. Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction, Sept. 18, 1997, 2056 U.N.T.S. 211. https://www.apminebanconvention.org/the-convention/text ↩

This position requires every branch of the federal government — including Congress, the judiciary, and the executive branch — to establish an independent board with authority to investigate criminal conduct and ethics violations by officials within that branch. Independent oversight at every level of government is essential for preventing corruption and ensuring that no branch can shield its own members from accountability.

Each branch of government and major constitutional body must establish an independent criminal and ethics oversight b...

Each branch of government and major constitutional body must establish an independent criminal and ethics oversight board

Source: DB entry OVR-BRN-001, status: MISSING. Pending editorial review.

This position requires that the oversight boards created for each branch of government must be structurally independent from the institutions they oversee — free from control by the officials whose conduct they are investigating. An oversight board that reports to or is appointed entirely by the entity it monitors cannot provide genuine accountability.

Oversight boards must be independent from the bodies they oversee

Oversight boards must be independent from the bodies they oversee

Source: DB entry OVR-BRN-002, status: MISSING. Pending editorial review.

This position establishes a new federal-level independent oversight and investigations body with the authority to investigate wrongdoing across all branches and levels of government. This fills a structural gap in U.S. accountability systems, where no single institution has clear jurisdiction to investigate misconduct by powerful officials regardless of which branch they work in.

Establish a federal independent oversight and investigations body

Establish a federal independent oversight and investigations body

Source: DB entry OVR-FED-001, status: MISSING. Pending editorial review.

This position grants the federal independent oversight body authority to investigate any federally elected official — including members of Congress and the President — for criminal conduct or ethics violations. Elected officials must not be immune from independent investigation simply because of their elected status.

Federal oversight body has authority to investigate any federally elected official

Federal oversight body has authority to investigate any federally elected official

Source: DB entry OVR-FED-002, status: MISSING. Pending editorial review.

This position specifies that the federal oversight body must include one directly elected member as well as members appointed by each branch of government, ensuring no single political faction controls the body and that it has democratic accountability through direct election. Broad representation in appointments guards against partisan capture.

Federal oversight body includes one elected member and members appointed by each branch of government

Federal oversight body includes one elected member and members appointed by each branch of government

Source: DB entry OVR-FED-003, status: MISSING. Pending editorial review.

This position grants the federal oversight body subpoena and deposition powers — the legal authority to compel witnesses to testify and to require the production of documents under penalty of law. Without these tools, an oversight body cannot effectively investigate powerful officials who refuse to cooperate voluntarily.

Federal oversight body has subpoena and deposition powers

Federal oversight body has subpoena and deposition powers

Source: DB entry OVR-FED-004, status: MISSING. Pending editorial review.

This position requires that oversight and investigation bodies receive funding that is guaranteed and adequate to perform their mandates. Underfunding oversight bodies — whether deliberately or through budget neglect — is a form of interference with accountability that must be prohibited.

Funding for oversight and investigation bodies must be guaranteed and adequate

Funding for oversight and investigation bodies must be guaranteed and adequate

Source: DB entry OVR-FND-001, status: MISSING. Pending editorial review.

This position requires that if Congress fails to pass a funding bill for oversight bodies, those bodies automatically receive a six-month extension of their current funding level. This prevents oversight from being shut down as a political tactic when legislators simply fail to act on appropriations.

If funding is not passed oversight bodies automatically receive a 6-month extension

If funding is not passed oversight bodies automatically receive a 6-month extension

Source: DB entry OVR-FND-002, status: MISSING. Pending editorial review.

This position specifies that the automatic six-month funding extension for oversight bodies must include a ten percent funding increase, creating a financial incentive for Congress to pass regular appropriations rather than letting oversight bodies operate in extended uncertainty — while also ensuring underfunded oversight bodies can build capacity over time.

Automatic funding extension includes a 10 percent increase

Automatic funding extension includes a 10 percent increase

Source: DB entry OVR-FND-003, status: MISSING. Pending editorial review.

This position requires that oversight body funding be kept in separate budget accounts from the departments they oversee, so that agencies being investigated cannot influence or reduce the resources of the bodies investigating them. Budgetary separation is a basic structural protection for oversight independence.

Oversight funding must be separate from the departments they oversee

Oversight funding must be separate from the departments they oversee

Source: DB entry OVR-FND-004, status: MISSING. Pending editorial review.

This position requires that oversight body funding be insulated from political interference and pressure from outside interests. Political leaders, industry lobbyists, and other external actors must not be able to threaten or reduce oversight funding as retaliation for unwelcome investigations or findings.

Oversight funding must be protected from political and external influence

Oversight funding must be protected from political and external influence

Source: DB entry OVR-FND-005, status: MISSING. Pending editorial review.

This position grants the federal independent oversight body authority to investigate governors and other senior state officials when their conduct raises federal law concerns or when state oversight bodies fail to act. Federal oversight jurisdiction over state officials provides a backstop when states cannot or will not hold their own officials accountable.

Federal oversight body may investigate governors and high-level state officials

Federal oversight body may investigate governors and high-level state officials

Source: DB entry OVR-JUR-001, status: MISSING. Pending editorial review.

This position authorizes the federal oversight body to investigate state-level oversight boards that fail to carry out their oversight duties — whether through neglect, political interference, or capture by the officials they were created to oversee. This ensures that accountability systems are themselves held accountable.

Federal oversight body may investigate state oversight boards if they fail to perform duties

Federal oversight body may investigate state oversight boards if they fail to perform duties

Source: DB entry OVR-JUR-002, status: MISSING. Pending editorial review.

This position requires every state to establish its own independent oversight board with authority to investigate state officials for criminal conduct and ethics violations. State-level oversight is essential because the federal system cannot monitor the full range of state government conduct, and residents deserve accountability mechanisms close to the officials who directly govern their lives.

Each state must establish its own independent oversight board

Each state must establish its own independent oversight board

Source: DB entry OVR-STA-001, status: MISSING. Pending editorial review.

This position requires that state oversight boards include members who are directly elected by voters, rather than being composed entirely of officials appointed by the politicians being overseen. Directly elected members give oversight boards democratic legitimacy that appointee-only bodies lack.

State oversight boards include directly elected members

State oversight boards include directly elected members

Source: DB entry OVR-STA-002, status: MISSING. Pending editorial review.

This position requires that state oversight boards also include members appointed by state legislatures and governors, balancing the directly elected members with representatives drawn from each branch of state government. This mixed structure ensures no single political faction dominates the oversight body while maintaining broad representation of the state's democratic institutions.

State oversight boards include members appointed by legislatures and governors

State oversight boards include members appointed by legislatures and governors

Source: DB entry OVR-STA-003, status: MISSING. Pending editorial review.

This position permanently exempts Puerto Rico from the Jones Act — a law that requires goods shipped between the continental U.S. and Puerto Rico to travel on U.S.-built, U.S.-owned ships — which adds an estimated 15 to 20 percent to the cost of goods on the island. Puerto Rican consumers and businesses should not bear this extra cost, which does not apply to foreign ports with comparable access to U.S. markets.

Permanent Jones Act Waiver for Puerto Rico Shipping

The Merchant Marine Act of 1920 (Jones Act) must be permanently waived for all shipping to and from Puerto Rico; goods shipped between the continental United States and Puerto Rico may be carried on any vessel regardless of U.S. build, ownership, or crew requirements. The Jones Act premium on Puerto Rico shipping — estimated to add 15–20% to the cost of goods — must not be borne by Puerto Rican consumers and businesses. Congress must conduct an annual economic impact review of Jones Act compliance costs on all U.S. territories.

This position requires that the federal board overseeing Puerto Rico's debt crisis (created under PROMESA) be restructured so that a majority of its seven members are elected by Puerto Rico voters — not appointed by U.S. presidents. Federal debt restructuring must prioritize funding for essential services like health care, education, water, and power before making debt service payments; bond deals that cut pensions or essential services below livable levels are void.

Puerto Rico Financial Oversight Board Must Have Majority Elected Puerto Rican Representation

The Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico established under PROMESA must be restructured to include a majority of members elected by Puerto Rico voters through a process controlled by the Puerto Rico legislature; no more than 3 of 7 board members may be appointed by the U.S. President. Federal debt restructuring under PROMESA must prioritize funding for essential public services — healthcare, education, water, and power — over debt service payments. Bond restructuring agreements that cut public pensions or essential services below subsistence levels are void as against public policy.

This position requires Congress to fund and hold a binding vote — within four years — giving Puerto Rico residents a genuine choice among statehood, independence, and free association, with a federal commitment to honor the outcome. If Puerto Rico votes for statehood, the admission process must begin within two years; if it votes for independence or free association, a transition plan including debt resolution, citizenship rights, and economic assistance must be negotiated within three years.

Federally Funded and Binding Puerto Rico Status Referendum

Congress must fund and conduct a binding referendum on Puerto Rico's political status within 4 years; the referendum must offer at minimum three options: statehood, independence, and free association. The federal government must commit in advance to honoring the outcome; if Puerto Rico votes for statehood, the admission process must be initiated within 2 years; if Puerto Rico votes for independence or free association, a transition framework including debt resolution, citizenship rights, and economic transition assistance must be negotiated within 3 years.

Puerto Rico has conducted multiple status referenda since 1967, with recent votes showing majority support for statehood. Congress has not acted on any referendum outcome.