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Updated January 24, 2022
Global Human Rights: The Department of State's Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices
Introductn
The State Department's Country Reports on Human Rights
Practices are an annual U.S. government account of human
rights conditions in countries around the globe. The reports
characterize countries on the basis of their adherence to
internationally recognized human rights, which generally
refer to civil, political, and worker rights set forth in the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other
international human rights agreements.
The most recent reports cover calendar year 2020 and were
issued on March 30, 2021. They provide individual
narratives on countries and territories worldwide and are
available on the Department of State website. As with prior
reports, the 2020 reports do not compare countries or rank
them based on the severity of human rights abuses
documented. Although the reports describe human rights
violations in many countries, in remarks introducing the
reports and in a written preface, Secretary of State Antony
Blinken specifically noted violations in a number of
countries, including China, Ethiopia, Russia, Syria, Uganda,
Venezuela, and Yemen, among others. Blinken described
Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) as a negative factor
affecting respect for human rights, stating, autocratic
governments have used [the pandemic] as a pretext to target
their critics and further repress human rights.
Categories Covered in the 2020 Reports
Integrity of the Person
Civil Liberties
Political Participation
Corruption and Government Transparency
Governmental Attitude toward Human Rights Investigations
Discrimination and Societal Abuses
Worker Rights
The statutory requirement for the human rights reports is
found in Sections 116 and 502B of the Foreign Assistance
Act (FAA) of 1961 (P.L. 87-195), as amended. Both of
these provisions were first enacted via congressional
amendments in the mid-1970s and have been broadened
and strengthened over time through additional amendments.
The 1970s was a formative period for human rights-related
legislation as Congress sought to enshrine human rights as a
priority in U.S. foreign policy. Section 502B of the FAA
(22 U.S.C. §2304), added in 1974 and substantially
strengthened in 1976, sought to withhold U.S. security
assistance from countries the governments of which engage
in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally
recognized human rights. Section 116 (22 U.S.C. §2151n),
added in 1975 and also strengthened in the years following,
imposed similar restrictions for recipients of U.S.
development assistance. Contained within these provisions
was language requiring that the Secretary of State transmit
to Congress each year a report on the human rights
conditions of recipient countries; an amendment to Section
116 in 1979 broadened the reporting requirement to cover
all other foreign countries. This language thus served as the
legislative basis for the State Department's annual human
rights reports. Despite the legislative origin of the reports in
connection with U.S. foreign assistance, the role that the
reports should play with regard to assistance decisions or in
U.S. foreign policy generally has been the subject of debate
(see Relationship to U.S. Foreign Policy below).
Evolution of the Reports
In the early reports, there was concern within the State
Department about publicly characterizing the human rights
conditions in other countries, particularly U.S. allies. The
first reports were criticized for being biased and thin on
substance. Over time, with improvements in the breadth,
quality, and accuracy of the reports, many observers have
come to recognize them as authoritative (countries whose
human rights conditions are criticized in the reports,
however, often publicly defend their record and/or dismiss
the reports as biased). Lawmakers, foreign governments,
human rights organizations, scholars, and others cite the
modern reports.
The State Department has gradually broadened the scope of
the reports to add or expand coverage of certain topics,
sometimes due to congressional amendments to the
statutory requirements. Topics that now receive increased
coverage include, for example, press and internet freedoms,
corruption and government transparency, and human rights
abuses based on sexual orientation and gender identity. In
addition, the reports now reference separate congressionally
mandated reports on international religious freedom (IRF)
and trafficking in persons (TIP). In introducing the 2020
reports, Secretary Blinken indicated that the State
Department would later release addenda with additional
information on issues related to reproductive rights, which
were removed from the reports during the prior
Administration. In November 2021, the department added
information for each country on key issues such as
government policy adversely affecting access to
contraception, access to skilled healthcare during pregnancy
and childbirth, access to emergency healthcare, and
discrimination against women in accessing sexual and
reproductive health care, including for survivors of gender-
based violence.
The joint explanatory statement for the FY2021 State
Department, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs
Appropriations Act (Division K of P.L. 116-260) directed
the Secretary of State to include within the reports
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