Senator Patty Murray (D – WA) recently re-introduced legislation called the Values in Arms Export Act. This legislation would amend the Arms Export Control Act – originally passed in 1976 – to include the evaluation of “responsible behavior and compliance with human rights and law of war the U.S. demands of states purchasing U.S. weapons.”

How This Legislation Would Work:

This bill comes in the wake of increasing violence around the world involving U.S. weapons – whether it be in Yemen, the Philippines, Mexico, or Central America. To address this problem Sen. Murray’s legislation would create an Oversight Board made up of a full-time chairperson and four additional members, all of whom would be appointed by the president with consent of the Senate.

This board would then evaluate the human rights principles and adherence to the law of conflict and ensure that these are considered before authorizing a sale. The board would issue recommendations based on this analysis and provide it to Congress, the president, or the head of any executive branch agency.

This assessment would then be submitted when a sale is notified to Congress. The board would also make its reports available to the public and hold public hearings. After this, the offending country would be unable to receive defense articles and services for a ten-year period. Finally, the president may waive this recommendation if the transfer is for assistance or training provided by any U.S. Government agency and carried out by U.S. personnel.

What Would Its Impact Be?

It is unlikely this bill becomes law due to the politics of restricting weapons sales. Moreover, the presidential waiver and the fact that members of the oversight board would be appointed by the president would theoretically mute much of its potential positive impact. Nonetheless, this legislation could substantially reduce the risk of sales and create a more humanitarian foreign policy for the United States.

In the Cato Institute’s 2021 Arms Sales Risk Index, my colleague Trevor Thrall and I examine the impact of weapons sales. Two of our six components are directly related to human rights (“freedom” and “state violence”) and two are directly related to conflict (“state fragility” and “conflict intensity”). These vectors are correlated with U.S. weapons being used against a country’s population, dispersion of U.S. weapons, and greater anti-American sentiment. The cases of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Afghanistan, Nigeria, Guinea, the UAE, and the Philippines demonstrate this risk.

Selling weapons to human rights abusers does not help the United States. Rather, it creates a self-licking ice cream cone whereby Washington provides more weapons and assistance to offset the problems that U.S. arms transfers created.

To that end, Senator Murray’s legislation could reduce these risks. Incorporating human rights into evaluation of weapons sales makes sense, and while the future and exact impact of the legislation should be debated, its proposal is a positive step towards this end.