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GAO-12-561R 1 (2012-05-31)

handle is hein.gao/gaobacgcv0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Accountabiliy - Integrity - Reliability United States Government Accountability Office Washington, DC 20548 May 31, 2012 The Honorable Hillary Rodham Clinton Secretary of State Dear Madam Secretary: Subject: Human Rights: State Department Followed an Extensive Process to Prepare Annual Country Reports Human rights are a central concern of U.S. foreign policy. Each year, in response to congressional mandates,1 the Department of State (State) issues its Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, an important source of information on human rights worldwide. The country reports-collectively known as the Human Rights Report (HRR)-cover internationally recognized civil, political, and worker rights as set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. State's 2010 HRR included country reports covering the status of human rights in more than 190 countries and spanning more than 7,000 pages.2 The 2010 report noted that State attempted to make the country reports as comprehensive, objective, and uniform as possible in both scope and quality of coverage. Regarding State's procedures for preparing the country reports, particularly the worker rights section, we examined (1) State's process for making the country reports as comprehensive, objective, and uniform as possible, and (2) the extent to which State followed its process in preparing the worker rights section of the 2010 country reports. All U.S. free trade agreements signed since 2000 include provisions related to worker rights. Moreover, as we have previously reported, enforcement of labor laws continued to be a challenge in some countries with which the United States has free trade agreements.3 State defines comprehensive as omitting no information of significant 1Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, Pub. L. No. 87-195, §§ 116(d) and 502B (codified as amended at 22 U.S.C. §§ 2151 n and 2304, respectively). 2We refer to State's 2010 country reports as the 194 individual country reports State published in April 2011 covering the human rights conditions in each country during 2010. We use the term HRR to refer to these country reports in addition to the introduction and appendixes issued concurrently. 3GAO, International Trade: Four Free Trade Agreements GAO Reviewed Have Resulted in Commercial Benefits, but Challenges on Labor and Environment Remain, GAO-09-439 (Washington, D.C.: July 10, 2009). GAO-1 2-561R Human Rights Report

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