Sponsors (11)
Introduced July 17, 2025 by Sara Jacobs · Last progress July 17, 2025
The bill strengthens human‑rights‑focused end‑use monitoring, transparency, and legal clarity—improving detection and deterrence of civilian harm and congressional oversight—but does so at the cost of higher taxpayer-funded administrative effort, greater compliance burdens, and potential delays or operational sensitivities that could reduce partner readiness.
People in communities abroad (civilians) will face lower risk of harm because U.S. transfers will include human‑rights/IHL conditions, written end‑use assurances, and monitoring that can detect and deter misuse.
U.S. policymakers, Congress, and taxpayers will get faster, clearer, and more consistent information about whether U.S. equipment or services were used to cause civilian harm thanks to integrated evidence sources, a public portal, an expert advisory board, and cross‑agency coordination.
U.S. government and exporters will face clearer legal and operational rules—harmonized definitions, unit‑level ineligibility lists, and updated DoD/DoS monitoring policies—reducing legal/reputational risk and ambiguity for arms transfers.
U.S. partners and military units could face pauses, restrictions, or delays in deliveries and training—reducing interoperability and readiness—if they cannot meet the tightened end‑use conditions or if assessments trigger suspensions.
Taxpayers will likely bear substantial new costs because establishing, staffing, and operating expanded monitoring, reporting, and investigation functions increases federal administrative spending.
Exporters, implementers, and foreign recipients will face greater compliance burdens and administrative delays (e.g., vetting, unit‑level ineligibility lists, conditioned grants), which can slow procurement and raise costs for contractors and partners.
Based on analysis of 6 sections of legislative text.
Creates a State Department program to monitor operational end-use of U.S.-origin arms, bars transfers tied to serious IHL/human-rights violations, requires new agreements, reporting, and funding.
Creates a new State Department program to track how U.S.-origin weapons and defense services are actually used in the field, to detect credible use that causes civilian harm or violates international humanitarian or human rights law, and to block or restrict future transfers when such violations are found. The measure requires new written end-use agreements and unit-level ineligibility lists, upgrades existing monitoring and guidance, funds the program through existing foreign military financing/surcharge mechanisms, and imposes reporting and oversight requirements on State, Defense, and the President.