President Joe Biden has nominated Vermont’s senior U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Democrat widely regarded for his work on international affairs and human rights, to the U.S. delegation for the upcoming session of the United Nations’ General Assembly.
According to a Tuesday press release from the White House, Leahy and U.S. Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, will represent the U.S. Congress at the meeting of world leaders at the U.N.’s headquarters in New York City later this month. Joining them will be three public delegates representing the United States: S. Douglas Bunch of Virginia, Carol Leslie Hamilton of California and Andrew Weinstein of Florida.
Over the course of his nearly 50-year career in the U.S. Senate, Leahy has spent more than 30 years as the highest-ranking Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Foreign Operations and State Department Subcommittee, which oversees funding and management of U.S. foreign policy, including its contributions to the U.N.
Over the course of his Senate career, Leahy has garnered a reputation as a leader on international affairs and human rights. According to Tuesday’s news release, he “played a central role” in repairing diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Cuba under the Obama administration, led cleanup efforts of Agent Orange sites in Vietnam and established the so-called Leahy War Victims Fund, which provides prosthetics and other support to international civilian war victims.
Among Leahy’s international affairs achievements is his namesake, the Leahy Law, which bars the U.S. from providing training, equipment or other aid to foreign agencies that have committed human rights abuses. The White House on Tuesday dubbed versions of this law “the most effective tools in the U.S. human rights toolkit.”
At an unrelated conference on Tuesday, Leahy said that, as he nears retirement in January, “the Leahy Law is one of the things I am proudest of.” His remarks were delivered at the State Department’s annual Leahy Law Conference.
“When we partner with foreign security forces, we automatically become involved in the internal affairs of their countries. The way those forces act and are perceived by their own people reflects — positively, or negatively — on us,” Leahy said at the conference. “When our partners, trained or equipped by us, commit abuses, we are complicit — or we are perceived to be complicit — in the predatory and abusive acts that erode the legitimacy of those forces. I think most people understand this.”
