Human Rights

State Department's Commitment to Accurate Reporting Has Increased Gao ID: NSIAD-90-224 September 26, 1990

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Department of State's processes and procedures for preparing its annual country reports on human rights practices.

GAO found that: (1) human rights observers agreed that the human rights report had improved in overall quality and accuracy; (2) the report was more objective and less frequently understated abuses to reflect U.S. political support for allied and friendly countries and groups; (3) State established guidelines detailing a standard format and defining what types of activities should be reported to ensure consistent and comparable human rights reporting; (4) at the nine embassies GAO visited, human rights were a high priority; (5) State reviewed overseas posts' draft reports to ensure a consensus on completeness, objectivity, and presentation; (6) State projected that it would have adequate staffing to oversee publications of the annual human rights reports when all bilateral affairs officer positions were filled; and (7) foreign service officers had experience but little formal training in human rights, and State began offering such formal training in August 1989.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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