Although this is not a comprehensive survey of U.S. embassy efforts to protect human rights defenders worldwide, several common threads emerged in our research...

• In Washington, D.C., the State Department has an open-door approach to human rights defenders
• Other countries’ embassies rely on U.S. embassies for leadership on this issue.
• U.S. embassies have many tools that can be used to support human rights defenders.
• When engaging with U.S. embassies, human rights defenders see more “personality” than “policy.”
• U.S. embassies rarely initiate follow-up with human rights defenders after meeting with them.
• Many embassies have not found a way to reach rural areas, where the threats are often greatest.
• U.S. embassies appear to struggle when dealing with “repressive allies,” such as Bahrain, Honduras, the Philippines and Saudi Arabia.
• U.S. embassies do not systematically coordinate their work on human rights defenders with their economic portfolios.
• Existing safeguards, such as the Leahy Law, are not sufficient to prevent U.S. security assistance from supporting perpetrators of attacks on human rights defenders.