The Role of Human Rights in US Foreign Aid Policy: An Assessment of US Aid to Pakistan and its Nexus with Human Rights

Abstract

The United States (US) has been one of the pioneering aid donors that passed legislative amendments in the Foreign Assistance Act and linked US economic and military assistance to human rights performance of aid recipient governments. These were indeed watershed moments for human rights activists not only in the US but elsewhere. However, the US has rarely implemented these laws since their enactment in the mid-1970s. Focusing on past as well as contemporary US aid policies towards Pakistan, this paper examines the extent to which the US has actually linked aid to human rights. Analyzing US economic and military aid to Pakistan during three distinct periods: the Cold War, the post-Cold War and the ‘war on terror’, the study illustrates that the US has conveniently ignored human rights violations of respective regimes that were vital for safeguarding US foreign policy goals in the region. The paper concludes that when US geo-strategic, security and political interests are at stake, human rights are not a significant determinant in US aid allocation. The contribution of this paper is that it is the first study of its kind that has comprehensively analyzed US aid policies vis-à-vis human rights in the context of Pakistan