<DOC>
[107th Congress House Hearings]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access]
[DOCID: f:79866.wais]
RULE OF LAW ASSISTANCE PROGRAMS
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY,
VETERANS AFFAIRS AND INTERNATIONAL
RELATIONS
of the
COMMITTEE ON
GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MAY 17, 2001
__________
Serial No. 107-66
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house
http://www.house.gov/reform
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COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM
DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman
BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland TOM LANTOS, California
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut MAJOR R. OWENS, New York
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania
STEPHEN HORN, California PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii
JOHN L. MICA, Florida CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,
MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana DC
JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
BOB BARR, Georgia ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois
DAN MILLER, Florida DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
DOUG OSE, California JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
RON LEWIS, Kentucky JIM TURNER, Texas
JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
DAVE WELDON, Florida WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
CHRIS CANNON, Utah ------ ------
ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida ------ ------
C.L. ``BUTCH'' OTTER, Idaho ------
EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
------ ------ (Independent)
Kevin Binger, Staff Director
Daniel R. Moll, Deputy Staff Director
James C. Wilson, Chief Counsel
Robert A. Briggs, Chief Clerk
Phil Schiliro, Minority Staff Director
Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans Affairs and International
Relations
CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut, Chairman
ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio
BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine
JOHN M. McHUGH, New York TOM LANTOS, California
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts
RON LEWIS, Kentucky JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
DAVE WELDON, Florida ------ ------
C.L. ``BUTCH'' OTTER, Idaho ------ ------
EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia
Ex Officio
DAN BURTON, Indiana HENRY A. WAXMAN, California
Lawrence J. Halloran, Staff Director and Counsel
Thomas Costa, Professional Staff Member
Jason Chung, Clerk
David Rapallo, Minority Counsel
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on May 17, 2001..................................... 1
Statement of:
Ford, Jess T., Associate Director, National Security and
International Affairs Division, U.S. General Accounting
Office, accompanied by Stephen M. Lord, Assistant Director,
International Affairs and Trade; and James B. Michels,
Senior Evaluator........................................... 5
Rosenblum, Daniel, Deputy Coordinator of U.S. Assistance to
the Newly Independent States, U.S. Department of State;
Viviann Gary, Director, Office of Democracy and Governance,
Bureau for Europe and Eurasia, U.S. Agency for
International Development; Bruce Swartz, Deputy Assistant
Attorney General, Criminal Division, Department of Justice;
Peter Prahar, Deputy Director, Office of Asian, African and
European/NIS Programs, Bureau for International Narcotics
and Law Enforcement Affairs; and Pamela J. Hicks, Acting
Deputy Assistant Secretary (Law Enforcement) of the
Treasury................................................... 32
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Ford, Jess T., Associate Director, National Security and
International Affairs Division, U.S. General Accounting
Office, prepared statement of.............................. 8
Gary, Viviann, Director, Office of Democracy and Governance,
Bureau for Europe and Eurasia, U.S. Agency for
International Development, prepared statement of........... 40
Prahar, Peter, Deputy Director, Office of Asian, African and
European/NIS Programs, Bureau for International Narcotics
and Law Enforcement Affairs, prepared statement of......... 75
Rosenblum, Daniel, Deputy Coordinator of U.S. Assistance to
the Newly Independent States, U.S. Department of State,
prepared statement of...................................... 34
Shays, Hon. Christopher, a Representative in Congress from
the State of Connecticut, prepared statement of............ 3
Swartz, Bruce, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Criminal
Division, Department of Justice, prepared statement of..... 60
RULE OF LAW ASSISTANCE PROGRAMS
----------
THURSDAY, MAY 17, 2001
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans Affairs
and International Relations,
Committee on Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 11:30 a.m., in
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Christopher
Shays (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Mr. Shays, Mr. Putnam, Mr. Kucinich, Mr. Platts,
and Mr. Clay.
Staff present: Lawrence Halloran, staff director/counsel;
Thomas Costa, professional staff member; Jason Chung, clerk;
David Rapallo, minority counsel; and Earley Green, minority
assistant clerk.
Mr. Shays. The subcommittee will come to order.
Where law ends, tyranny begins. With these words, British
statesman William Pitt succinctly mapped the boundary between
democracy and despotism. From the Ten Commandments to our
Constitution, free peoples have enshrined their principles and
aspirations in statutes, preferring the rule of law to the whim
of tyrants.
For more than a decade, U.S. foreign assistance programs
have promoted development of the legislation, institutions,
procedures, and habits that establish the primacy of law and
justice over fiat and corruption. Rule of law programs seek to
assure the power of the state is used to advance, not diminish,
collective and individual rights through legal education and
training, an independent judiciary, impartial law enforcement,
and broad access to the courts. Since the former Soviet Union
dissolved, the United States has allocated more than $200
million to the Newly Independent States to fuel the transition
from political and economic totalitarianism to a fair, just and
prosperous civil society.
To determine whether these efforts are capitalizing on
indigenous democratic urges and achieving lasting reforms, we
asked the General Accounting Office [GAO] to analyze how
effectively the Departments of State, Justice, Treasury and the
U.S. Agency for International Development manage and monitor
rule of law programs.
With the past as prologue, the findings GAO reports today
should be of no surprise. Eight years ago, GAO concluded
judicial and legal reform assistance was ineffective and
wasteful unless program managers gauged the receptiveness of
the host nation, acknowledged entrenched political and
institutional barriers, evaluated progress toward tangible
outcomes and coordinated with other agencies.
Despite the benefit of these lessons learned, current rule
of law assistance in the former Soviet Union has had little
lasting impact, according to GAO. Like seeds cast on rocky
soil, market reforms and legal improvements have not taken
root. Naive hopes often supplant hard measures of host country
willingness to embrace change. Local funding to sustain the
infrastructure of an open, transparent legal system is not
available. Program managers too often settle for intangible,
unmeasurable benefits, such as improved law enforcement
contacts, which could be achieved as effectively though other
means.
The failure to set realistic goals and monitor progress has
resulted in millions wasted in places like Haiti and Ukraine,
where conditions now appear worse. Money spent is not the
measure of success for rule of law programs. U.S. aid can fan
the flames of reform. It cannot generate the spark. In a nation
ready and willing to embrace change, a small grant can yield
profound and lasting results. In a nation determined to cling
to the old ways, no amount will overcome institutional
corruption and cultural resistance to equality under the law.
This is not to say rule of law assistance should be
abandoned. Our reverence as a nation for the rule of law
demands we not just mean well, but actually do well in helping
translate nascent democratic aspirations into the words and
deeds of an open, just society. So potentially potent an
element of U.S. foreign assistance should be better planned,
more accurately targeted, more effectively coordinated, more
rigorously evaluated and better managed. It should not take
another 8 years for the GAO recommendations in this new report
to be implemented.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Christopher Shays follows:]
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Mr. Shays. We appreciate the assistance of the General
Accounting Office in this oversight, and we welcome the
testimony of all our witnesses.
We're pleased to have the first panel today, giving his
testimony, Jess Ford, Associate Director, National Security and
International Affairs Division, GAO, who's accompanied by
Stephen Lord, Assistant Director, International Affairs and
Trade, GAO, and James Michels, Senior Evaluator, International
Affairs and Trade, again for the U.S. GAO.
We'd also like to acknowledge Mr. Platts from Pennsylvania.
Mr. Platts, do you have an opening statement?
Mr. Platts. No, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Shays. Very well.
At this time, I'd ask the panel and all those accompanying
you who intend to give testimony for the record to stand for
the swearing in.
Raise your right hands, please.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Shays. Let the record note that the witnesses responded
in the affirmative.
With that, Mr. Ford, you're recognized for your opening
statement.
STATEMENT OF JESS T. FORD, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL
SECURITY AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS DIVISION, U.S. GENERAL
ACCOUNTING OFFICE, ACCOMPANIED BY STEPHEN M. LORD, ASSISTANT
DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS AND TRADE; AND JAMES B.
MICHELS, SENIOR EVALUATOR
Mr. Ford. Members of the subcommittee, with your permission
I'd like to have my full statement added for the record. I'm
going to try to summarize it.
I'm pleased to be here today to discuss U.S. rule of law
programs in the New Independent States of the former Soviet
Union, which we reviewed at your request. My testimony will
highlight some of the major points that we made in our report
which is being released today.
With me is Mr. Steve Lord, who is our assistant director
responsible for this project and Mr. Jim Michels, who is a
senior analyst also heavily involved in this project.
Since 1991, the Newly Independent States of the former
Soviet Union have been struggling to overcome a long tradition
of totalitarian rule marked by an arbitrary system of justice
and state suppression of human rights. To support these states'
transition to a more open and democratic style of government,
the U.S. Government has committed about $216 million in
assistance in fiscal years 1992 to 2000 to help them develop
sustainable institutions, traditions and legal foundations for
establishing a strong rule of law.
The U.S. Agency for International Development, the
Department of Justice, the Department of State, and the
Department of Treasury are the key Federal agencies responsible
for administering this program.
My discussion of the U.S. Government's rule of law program
in the Newly Independent States will focus on two key issues.
First, our assessment of the extent to which the program has
had impact on the development of rule of law and whether
program results were sustainable. Second, identification of
factors which affect the program's impact and sustainability.
By sustainability, we mean the extent to which the benefits of
the program extend beyond the program's life span.
Our review focused primarily on Russia and Ukraine, which
received at least half of the total U.S. rule of law assistance
during that timeframe. The U.S. Government's rule of law
assistance efforts in the Newly Independent States of the
former Soviet Union have had limited impact so far and results
may not be sustainable in many cases. U.S. agencies have helped
support a variety of legal reforms and have had some success in
introducing a variety of innovative legal concepts and
practices related to the operation of the courts, legal
education, law enforcement and civil society in these
countries.
For example, United States helped establish legal eduction
clinics in Russian and Ukrainian law schools to help provide
practical training for future lawyers as well as greater access
to the court, to legal remedies for their problems. However,
U.S. assistance has not often major long term impact on the
evolution of rule of law in these countries.
In some cases, countries have not clearly adopted on a wide
scale the new concepts and practices that the United States has
advocated. Moreover, it is not clear whether U.S. supported
activities are likely to be sustained beyond our current
involvement. For example, we've found that judicial training
centers that the United States helped establish in Ukraine to
train judges and other court officials have either been shut
down or dismantled or are seriously under-utilized.
In Russia, jury trials which the United States helped
introduce have not been expanded beyond the initial pilot
project in 9 of the 89 regions within the country. In other
cases, continuation or expansion of innovations depend on
further funding from the U.S. Government or other donors. For
example, in Russia and Ukraine, local non-government
organizations that we visited continued to rely heavily on
foreign donor support to conduct activities initially sponsored
by the United States, such as continuing legal education for
practicing lawyers, as well as legal advocacy and public
awareness activities.
Overall, progress in establishing the rule of law has been
slow in the Newly Independent States and appears to have
actually deteriorated in recent years in several of these
countries, including Russia and Ukraine, according to data used
by U.S. agencies to measure U.S. involvement and assistance
results. It is clear that establishing the rule of law is a
complex, long term undertaking and in the Newly Independent
States, laws and institutions that were designed are generally
still under the power of the state.
In our review, we found that the impact and sustainability
of U.S. rule of law programs has been affected by a number of
factors, including limited political consensus for reform,
foreign government budget constraints to institutionalize some
of the more expensive innovations and weaknesses in how U.S.
agencies designed and implemented these programs.
The first two factors have created a very difficult
environment in which to foster rule of law development. As a
result, many key legal institutional improvements have yet to
be made, including the passage of some post-Soviet era criminal
and civil code procedures.
Moreover, U.S. agencies have not always designed and
implemented these eight projects with an emphasis on achieving
sustainable outcomes and monitoring program impact and
sustainability. The Departments of State, Justice and Treasury
have not developed specific strategies for achieving long term
objectives or desired outcomes of their assistance projects,
such as reforming national law enforcement practices. Instead,
efforts have focused on achieving short term outputs, such as
training a finite number of people.
Further, none of the agencies, including USAID, have
effective monitoring and evaluation systems in place to fully
assess the longer term results and sustainability of their
efforts. Recently, U.S. agencies have begun to pay attention,
increased attention, to improving project planning and
evaluation or are in the process of making changes.
However, the State Department has committed but not yet
spent approximately $30 million in law enforcement training
projects, many of which were designed prior to these new
reforms. Unless these funds are reprogrammed for other purposes
or the projects are redesigned, they may have limited impact or
sustainability.
In our report, we made three recommendations to the
Secretary of State, the Attorney General, the Secretary of
Treasury and the AID Administrator. First, we recommended that
they require for each rule of law project that their agencies
implement specific strategies for achieving impact and
sustainable results. Second, that there be a provision added
for the monitoring and evaluation of outcomes and indicators
used to measure those results. Third, we recommended that
State, Justice and Treasury review the current pipeline of
training projects to ensure that they are designed to achieve
sustainable impacts and sustainable results.
Mr. Chairman, that concludes my opening statement. We would
be pleased to answer any of your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Ford follows:]
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Mr. Shays. Thank you very much for your opening statement.
At this time I'd like to ask the ranking member, Mr.
Kucinich, if he would like to give his opening statement.
Mr. Kucinich. I thank the gentleman, and I'd be glad to go
right to questions.
Mr. Shays. You are recognized for questions. Oh, we have
one more statement. I'm sorry. Mr. Clay, would you like to make
an opening statement?
Mr. Clay. Mr. Chairman, I will forego an opening statement
and ask some questions of the panel. Thank you.
Mr. Shays. Very good. Mr. Kucinich, you're recognized for
questions.
Mr. Kucinich. Thank you. A question of GAO. I want to ask
about your basic findings. You concluded that the impact of
U.S. rule of law programs in the former Soviet states is
limited. You gave examples of the goals that have not been
achieved. You also provided examples of some remarkable
achievements.
My question is, what standard did you use to arrive at your
determination that the impact of these programs was limited?
Mr. Ford. Essentially, we reviewed project documentation
provided by each of the four key agencies involved in
implementing the projects. We attempted to use criteria that
they themselves employed to determine whether or not actual
impact was being achieved on individual projects.
We found that in many cases, such criteria didn't really
exist as far as long term impact. They often talked about
output type of indicators, such as training people without
necessarily a follow-on outcome measure to say what the purpose
of the training or the follow-on, to make sure that this was
going to be applied on a broader basis.
So we essentially used the criteria that existed in the
program documents that all of the agencies used in each of
these projects.
Mr. Kucinich. Your prepared statement said that progress
has been slow, compared to what?
Mr. Ford. Well, we've been doing this for 8 years. I think
that using the indicators again that some of the agencies use,
if you look at the overall impact of rule of law in Russia and
Ukraine, there hasn't been a significant amount of overall
change in their government. So again, we used both their
project level indicators and also broader indicators, such as
the Freedom House results, which were included in our
statement, to try to get a sense of whether or not there is any
real broad based improvement and we just haven't seen it.
Mr. Kucinich. Do you use indicators that are connected with
the IMF, for example, or any other international financial
institutions?
Mr. Ford. For this particular project, we have not used
those types of indicators. Now, we did issue a report on Russia
in November of last year which did include assessments of IMF,
World Bank and also broader foreign assistance programs, which
included economic reforms, privatization. It was a different
type of audit, but we did use those type of criteria in that
effort.
Mr. Kucinich. OK. I thank the gentleman and yield back.
Mr. Shays. The gentleman yields back his time. Mr. Clay,
you're recognized.
Before we move forward, let me read into the--I ask
unanimous consent that all members of the subcommittee be
permitted to place any opening statement in the record, and
that the record remain open for 3 days for that purpose.
Without objection, so ordered.
I ask further unanimous consent that all witnesses be
permitted to include their written statements in the record. Is
there objection? Without objection, so ordered.
Mr. Ford, the focus of this report was on the former Soviet
states. How does the progress or the lack thereof in the former
Soviet states compare to other regions of the world where
similar programs have been attempted?
Mr. Ford. That's a little tough question to answer on a
global basis. We have done some work on rule of law similar to
this project in the last couple of years. We issued a report
about 2 years ago on five Latin American countries, and we
issued a report last year on Haiti. I can say that when you
take probably the case that was the more difficult one in terms
of showing impact, it was the work we did in Haiti. The key
point there in that work was that the political commitment on
the part of the government wasn't there. And as a result, a lot
of the effort that we had put into Haiti didn't bear much
fruit.
With regard to the other report that we issued in 1998, we
found much more mixed results. The common thread that I think
we see in all of these types of projects is there needs to be
fairly strong political will on the part of your partner that
you're working with, be that the local government itself or the
NGO community, for these things to be successful. I think that
our work overall would tend to show that we had more success
when there's a stronger political will and commitment on the
part of our partners, and then when you don't see that type of
thing occurring, the impact tends to be significantly less.
Mr. Shays. Let me rephrase my questions. Have rule of law
programs worked anywhere in the world?
Mr. Ford. Have they been successful?
Mr. Shays. Have they been successful.
Mr. Ford. I think it's fair to say that in some countries
we've had some fairly significant success in getting various
aspects of rule of law implemented. I think that again, the
work we did in Latin America, there are examples, El Salvador
is one that comes to mind where we've had a number of
successful programs there to implement aspects of independent
judiciary, legal reforms.
Now, to say whether or not these governments are fully
Jeffersonian democracies, I can't get that far. But I think
there are places where we've had success.
Mr. Shays. I'm not sure that we're a Jeffersonian democracy
any more. [Laughter.]
You mentioned that one of the key indicators is the
political will there in the indigenous country. How do you
evaluate, how do you determine whether or not the political
will is there?
Mr. Ford. Well, I think as we say in this particular
report, one sign would be whether or not some of the efforts
that we have undertaken are being sustained, or are going to be
picked up by our partner. So for example, when we make an
investment in developing, say, a legal center, where we're
going to train indigenous folks to be lawyers, I think at some
point there should be a commitment on the part of our partner
to help sustain that effort. That means they have to put
resources into the project, they have to make equipment
available. And when we looked at some of the projects, in this
particular case, we didn't see that happening.
So I think that's a sign, perhaps, of lack of political
will on the part of our partner to carry through with some of
the reforms that we'd like to see.
Mr. Shays. Is there an objective way to evaluate whether or
not the political will is there before we are into it, before
we've committed resources and time and personnel?
Mr. Ford. I think there are some steps that can be taken. I
think adding some conditions to the assistance that we provide,
where we expect to see a quid pro quo for the assistance that
we provide can be added to some of the agreements that we sign
up for. So I think yes, there are some things we can do. Let's
try to get a commitment up front that whatever efforts we
undertake, there will be some further follow-on activity on the
part of our partner.
Mr. Shays. Which NGO's have been most helpful in assisting
the various departments of U.S. Government in developing these
as well?
Mr. Michels. We visited a wide variety of NGO's, some of
which were more active than others. There was an NGO in Ukraine
that was working on women's rights issues, one of the few NGO's
that we saw that actually raised money locally from businesses
and citizens. We found pockets of NGO activity that were very
aggressive. Most of the rest of them depended on foreign
support, U.S. support or other countries over the longer term.
But many of them, especially while they were getting the
funding, were very active.
The ones that come to mind, in Ukraine also, environmental
NGO's. We've been supporting them for several years. It's time
for them to become more independent now. But they've been very
effective. There are some labor rights NGO's in Russia that we
found that actually were pushing litigation through the system
and getting legal rights for workers. Again, dependent on a lot
of support from labor unions and organizations outside of
Russia. But very committed.
Mr. Shays. How much private support is there from within
the United States for these programs? Is the bar association a
leader in this effort? Are there other attorneys' organizations
or professional associations that are leaders in this effort,
or is the Government out there by themselves?
Mr. Michels. There are certainly pockets. We noticed for
example in Russia, in Korellia, there were partnerships between
lawyers and judges in Vermont and in the region of Korellia.
It's hard to canvass and figure out exactly where all those
exist. But we certainly did find pockets. We found that the
Soils Foundation, which particularly is very active, was
supporting many of the same types of programs that we were
doing, especially in the legal clinic area. It was almost a
little bit of competition among donors to find things that will
work and that will fund them.
Mr. Shays. Mr. Ford, what are the results of the agencies'
focusing on short term outputs, and how should they retool
their programs to establish some form of long term objective?
Mr. Ford. I think what we'd like to see, and by the way,
since we've completed our work, we understand that a number of
the agencies are in fact moving in the direction we'd like to
see. What we want is for them to design projects and efforts
that have much more clear and long term outcome orientation
than just saying that they train 20 people in a particular
course or something of that nature. We want to see more of a
linkage between a broader outcome when we're going to make an
investment in most of these programs. What we saw in the work
in the past was that often didn't occur, wasn't readily
available in the documentation that we reviewed. Particularly
this was true in the law enforcement area.
So we would like to see the key agencies that are involved
in these type activities in effect have a better game plan that
articulates a longer term goal.
Mr. Shays. What are the major barriers to success in these
programs? Are the cultural barriers? Is it a resentment that
the U.S. Government is there to tell them how to do things?
What is the biggest obstacle to success in this regard?
Mr. Ford. I think the biggest obstacle is really whether
they really want to make major changes in the way they do
business. If you read, particularly for Russia and Ukraine, the
literature with regard to real reform of the judiciary, a real
attempt to overcome some of the problems they have, like
pretrial detention, there hasn't been much progress in that
area. I think, to me anyway, that's a sign that maybe they're
not as committed to making fundamental changes that they need
to make.
So I think that's a key factor. I think the economy of
these countries obviously is a factor because they need
resources in order to be able to replicate many of the
suggestions that we're making, and we've seen cases where we
have good suggestions, like on jury trials, they're not
stepping to the plate and expanding the program. They're
arguing they don't have the resources to do it. I think that's
another key factor that has to be weighed in here.
So I think those are two major external factors,
environmental factors, and they exist in just about any country
where we run these kind of programs. I think on the program
side, we felt that we needed a better integrated effort and we
needed to have better indicators up front when we design these
kinds of projects, and we believe that the executive branch is
now starting to move in that direction.
Mr. Shays. So is it your opinion that the obstacles are
benign in the sense that it is a cultural reluctance or
hesitancy or that it is a darker, more conspiratorial reason
that through corruption, that the powers that be actually
benefit from the system as it is without the rule of law?
Mr. Ford. Well, certainly, I think your latter comment,
there's a lot of commentary that would suggest that exists. I
think that we have to look for targets of opportunity, places
where there is an opportunity to make some changes that the
governments and the local communities there will actually take
action. For us to expect a place like Russia, that's been
governed by totalitarian rule of one sort or another for
hundreds of years to suddenly change the way they operate is,
to expect that change overnight is just not realistic. This is
going to be a long term effort. And if we want to see change,
we have to recognize it's going to take a long time before
fundamental changes really occur.
Mr. Shays. Has it been your observation that economic
efforts, the opening of trade agreements, the exchange of
cultural programs, have contributed to the historical
reluctance to move toward rule of law programs? How much of an
impact does free trade and access to the internet and access to
television and access to information contribute to the success
of these programs at a cultural level?
Mr. Ford. Well, we didn't really cover that in this
particular assignment. I can just give you my opinion.
I think that any time you have open access, be that through
the internet, media or other mechanisms such as that, the
chances of having a more open society and effecting some kind
of change, you have a better chance than having a closed
society where you don't have access to any kind of outside
influence. But that doesn't mean that even with those types of
mechanisms in place that you're going to see major changes
overnight in a lot of these countries.
Mr. Shays. Mr. Clay, you're recognized.
Mr. Clay. Mr. Ford, your report said that you conducted
various interviews, studied numerous documents and visited
former Soviet states on several occasions, is that right?
Mr. Ford. Yes, we sent teams into Russia and Ukraine to
visit several locations in both countries.
Mr. Clay. Did you conduct any surveys that would have given
you a more statistical sample of the programs and their
effects, or did you plan to do one and change your mind?
Mr. Ford. I think we attempted to address all of the major
programs that each of the four key implementing agencies had
identified to us as being their key rule of law programs for
both of those countries. We didn't visit all of the projects.
We just logistically couldn't get to all of them.
Mr. Clay. Mr. Ford, the State Department says their
followup research shows that exchange programs have a major
impact on the participants which over the long term have a
significant impact. Did you meet with alumni of U.S. Government
exchange programs?
Mr. Michels. I just want to say a couple of things about
surveys, and this question as well. Initially we thought about
doing a survey of some of the participant training of
exchanges. After consulting with our colleagues, State,
Justice, and USAID, we were discouraged from doing that because
for cultural reasons, it's very difficult to get responses from
people by telephone or by mail. So we didn't pursue that.
We did meet with a lot of people who participated in a lot
of different kinds of exchanges. By and large, for the most
part, they really enjoyed the exchanges. We found relatively
little about what actually came about as a result of the
exchange. One exception was a dean of a law school in St.
Petersburg who clearly credits the exposure to U.S. law schools
to the transformation of that particular law school. It's a
very prestigious law school, to make a special case.
He told us that although that exchange helped him, he
really didn't see those kinds of transformations going on with
his colleagues at other law schools. So we were able to get
kind of a cross section of views from people that did
exchanges. But we weren't really able to address it
systematically.
Mr. Clay. What would be the best way for the U.S. agencies
to implement the kinds of measures you described in your
report, and how could the agencies most improve the delivery of
their assistance?
Mr. Ford. Well, again, I think that the recommendations we
have in our report are designed for the agencies that are a
little clearer focused on what the expected outcome is for the
activity that they're going to undertake. We think,
particularly in the case of AID, they have a lot of experience
in implementing assistance programs where they have better
indicators of success. This particular program, up until
recently, those kinds of indicators didn't exist. It was
particularly a problem in the law enforcement area, where most
of the information we saw had to do with just numbers of people
that had been trained.
Mr. Lord. And also within each country, I think it's
important for the embassy to approve all the training that's
being offered by all the subordinate agencies. In the past, I
think we found some examples where people would fly in, fly
out, get some training, the post itself was unaware of what the
objectives of the courses were. So to their credit, I think the
agencies recognized that and they have formed working groups at
the embassy level to ensure all the training that's being
offered is consistent with the overall goals of the programs.
So I think they're doing a much better job of making sure
whatever they're offering is coherent and part of an overall
game plan.
Mr. Clay. Mr. Ford, you said that you didn't see
substantial improvement. But you say in your report that the
United States has helped several of these countries adopt new
constitutions and pass legislation establishing independent
judiciaries and post-communist civil and criminal codes and
procedures, as well as other legislation that supports
democratic and market oriented reform.
Doesn't that sound pretty impressive? Wouldn't you agree?
Mr. Ford. Yes, I agree wholeheartedly. Again, we didn't say
we didn't see any successes. In fact, we went out of our way to
try to identify any cases where we felt there was some positive
impacts from the assistance that we provided. And certainly in
the case of legal reforms, we acknowledge in the report several
cases where our assistance did in fact help passage of laws.
I think the key issue here now is implementation. Because
what we've also found that while there's a lot of these laws on
the books, many of them aren't being fully implemented, so that
the real benefits from these laws haven't yet accrued to the
populations.
Mr. Clay. I see. Thank you, and thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Shays. Mr. Clay, you're more than welcome.
I'm struck by the fact that--the gentleman from
Pennsylvania, you have the floor.
Mr. Platts. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just one question.
I certainly appreciate the panelists' comments and
testimony they've shared. Certainly maybe there's a perception
of a love-hate relationship between office holders and the
media. But as one who believes that the free press, the media
plays a very important role in the openness and effectiveness
of our government and the rule of law here, could you give me
an assessment of how the lesser level of freedom of the press
in these developing countries or these countries in question
has impacted the programs and the ability for us to be
effective?
And I think of the television station takeover not too long
ago, and certainly if the public is not aware if the law is not
being followed or not being implemented, it's harder for the
society to embrace change as opposed to just in name but not in
reality. So if you could address that, I'd appreciate it.
Mr. Ford. I'm going to let Jim handle this. But we didn't
cover media in the scope of our work. I think the environment
there, we can comment a little bit about that, because I think
you have a valid point.
Mr. Michels. Yes, as Mr. Ford said, the media programs are
only really, in this case, were only a very small part of the
program, because there are other media efforts, assistance
efforts, outside of what we looked at. But in terms of it being
directly related to judicial reform, there was a big media
focus.
Having said that, we did see areas where open media was
really important for development of the rule of law, especially
on a local level, because corruption of judges in particular,
and the police, is one of the biggest obstacles to developing
rule of law. Judges don't get paid much, they're kind of low on
the social ladder. And corruption, bribe taking, is one of the
few ways that they can make enough money to support their
families.
And exposure of corruption through the media is one way on
a local level, particularly, that they've been able to uncover
some of this corruption, especially on a police level. Just on
the streets, the shakedowns and things like that, getting this
thing on the television. We saw it.
And some of these civil society projects, had a component,
a little tiny component, but I think disproportionately
effective, in terms of exposing corruption and letting people
know what's going on, what the courts are all about, what the
police procedures are all about, telling people about what
their rights are. These things were really important for local
citizens. They can get involved if they know about it.
So opening up of what the court system is, what the legal
system is, to the media has been an effective component of this
program. Very small, though.
Mr. Platts. For the programs you analyzed and assessed, did
you see because of that small investment a big return in public
exposure there being consideration of trying to broaden the
direct involvement, and that the media and the public exposure
does very much relate to all these programs? And that long term
sustainability to me goes to the public being more aware of
their rights, more aware of corruption and demanding change.
That goes to the long term.
Did you see that within the agencies?
Mr. Michels. I may be wrong, and perhaps the agencies can
tell you a little bit better, I didn't see that as major thrust
of their coming up efforts. We saw more continuation. Eurasian
Foundation supports a bunch of local NGO's. One of those NGO's
involves a lot of media. I think there was some consideration
of continuing that in Russia, in particular, but I don't think
it was the main thrust.
Mr. Platts. So the reference to some other media were not
U.S. funded, part of our Government funded programs, but
private or other organizations?
Mr. Michels. As far as I know. And also, there may be
other, I'm sure there are, other media projects that USAID and
others sponsored that we didn't look at and I'm not aware of.
But in terms of the rule of law program, that's the main thrust
of that, but it certainly is, I'm sure, part of their
portfolio. They can tell you more about it.
Mr. Platts. Mr. Chairman, thank you, and I'm running off to
another meeting as well. Maybe the subsequent panel, I may not
be here, but if they can be asked to address the media aspects
of their agencies and trying to coordinate, if they can plan on
addressing that as part of the record.
Mr. Shays. I will ask the question specifically as it
relates to your request, and thank you very much for being
here, Mr. Platts.
Mr. Platts. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks for your
testimony.
Mr. Shays. Sorry I missed your statements. There have been
some developments in campaign finance reform that I have been
very eager to see moved forward, so we needed to address that.
You were in very good hands, by the way, with the vice
chairman. In fact, I had a few people tell me that they prefer
it when I'm not there, because he does a better job. Those
staff members are no longer working for me. [Laughter.]
Mr. Ford, in your work, did you come across any programs
that were canceled, restructured or scaled back because they
were not meeting strategic objectives?
Mr. Ford. There were some programs that we identified, I
mentioned earlier the judicial centers in Ukraine, which we had
started up with our assistance. And when we went to visit them,
one of them had been closed down, and the other one was
operating at very limited capacity.
Now, we were told that the reason that happened was that
resources weren't available, basically, to continue those
efforts.
Mr. Michels. I think one of the key examples would be legal
education in Ukraine. I think it's an area where AID really
identified that they weren't making any progress in this area,
or a lot of progress, and had scaled back. Much to the chagrin
of their major grantees, partners, ABA. But there wasn't a lot
of express activity on the part of the legal education
community to reform. So the assistance was kind of shortened,
turned back in that area.
Mr. Shays. Thank you. I'm going to not say the name the way
I'd like to, but Uri Gongazi, the journalist in Ukraine, the
crusading journalist, what am I to feel when I read in the
newspaper today that the crime, I think he was beheaded?
Mr. Ford. Yes.
Mr. Shays. That his murder was solved, that there were two
hooligans that did it, and they're dead.
Mr. Lord. I think that highlights some of the problems you
encounter in trying to develop a rule of law in these
countries. I think the issue in Ukraine is the power is highly
concentrated within the executive branch, and there isn't a
system of checks and balances like we have in our country. So
these types of things occur and it's difficult to address them
effectively to the courts.
Mr. Shays. When we fund various programs and we have
individuals who we hire to do that, my perception is that they
take some risk to their own life by participating in these
programs. Is that a fair assessment, that, I'll say it this
way, it's not without risk, significant risk?
Mr. Michels. I don't think that we saw any particular
examples of it. But there certainly is risk. This type of
reform, you're dealing with really entrenched interests. You're
dealing, any time you're dealing with just about any major
entity where a lot of money is involved, you've got mafia
concerns, you've got concerns with the police, police
corruption and difficulties with police detention.
So although I don't think many people expressed it to us,
you could feel it, tangibly. Yes, it's a corrupt environment.
Mr. Lord. For example, we met with a couple of NGO's
interested in investigative journalism. We met behind steel
doors about 6 inches thick. So it was palpable, some of the
security concerns they had.
Mr. Shays. I usually ask this question having been at the
entire hearing, but is there a question that my colleagues or I
should have asked you that you wished were asked? Is there
anything you prepared for that you think we should have made
sure we requested?
Mr. Lord. That you could have asked of us or the executive
branch witnesses? [Laughter.]
Mr. Shays. Both. Was there any question, though, that you
would like to answer that we haven't asked you? I don't want
you to go home to your spouses tonight and say, you know, I
stayed up all night cramming for this, and they didn't even ask
me those questions.
Mr. Lord. I would ask a question more along the strategic
line, how these programs should be either re-thought, reshaped,
given all the problems we've had.
Mr. Shays. Given all the problems we've had, how should all
these programs be reshaped or changed?
Mr. Lord. In the past, how to reorient them.
Mr. Shays. How would we reorient them? I've asked the
question.
Mr. Ford. Let me jump in here. I think we ought to look for
opportunities to get a firmer commitment on the part of our
partners in these endeavors to try to get an opportunity to
make sure that when we start a useful program, there will be a
likelihood that it will be carried out and sustained by our
partner. I think that's one thing we should incorporate more
than perhaps we have in the past.
And I think that we ought to be willing to walk away in
those cases where we've started something that we're not
getting that type of a commitment from our partner. My view is
that if that's the case, we should walk away from those kinds
of projects and try to move to another area where we have a
better likelihood that we're going to get some meaningful
result.
Mr. Shays. So you talked about walking away when we don't
get the results we want. But the question Mr. Lord asked was a
little more than that. And now it's my question.
Mr. Lord, why don't you respond to that? Would you make any
other response? Mr. Michels. Or Mr. Ford as well. Are there
ways that we should be redesigning the programs, specifically
that you'd like to see redesigned?
Mr. Ford. Well, yes, the people that implement these
programs have to assess the environment they're working under.
We understand that working in the environment in the former
Soviet Union is a very difficult environment because of some of
the things we just talked about. But I also think that having
reviewed a number of rule of law activities over the years,
that we should be in a position where we can, through lessons
learned, come up with the approaches that we think have a
better likelihood of success in making sure that when we plan
those kinds of activities we have sort of an integrated game
plan where all of the agencies involved work together toward a
common goal, so that the folks that are implementing law
enforcement programs, the folks that are involved in democracy
building, the media support, they all work together toward a
common goal. I think that in the past we've seen the cases
where that didn't always occur.
Mr. Shays. Any other questions or comment you'd like to
make before we go off to vote? Mr. Lord, would you like to make
a final comment. I'd welcome a final comment from all of you.
Mr. Ford. Well, let me make a final comment based on, and
the executive branch is going to get their day in court, but--
--
Mr. Shays. Let me do this. Let me have Mr. Michels and Mr.
Lord make final comments, and then you can make sure you
qualify any response you get. Mr. Michels.
Mr. Michels. Yes, I spent several months deeply mired in a
lot of programs in a lot of countries. Sometimes it's hard to
sort out all of the different things that have happened. But I
would say that, there are a lot of innovative, very creative
energies that were tapped into in these programs. You're up
against really entrenched interests in these countries, the
prosecutors in these countries, the corruption and things.
There are certainly sparkling finds on a local level of
people that want to change. It's a very difficult environment.
Saying that they've had limited impact, as we did, I don't want
that to put a cloud over the whole program, because there's a
lot of really good things that have happened. I think it's the
environment that they work in, and a kind of unwillingness or
lack of willingness to really be, a hard assessment of the
program at the end of the day, and looking to the future when
you're finished 2 years from now, are the accomplishments still
going to be there, are they going to grow?
Sometimes they get so mired into working on what's going on
right now that they don't always look at what's really been
accomplished.
Mr. Shays. And I guess you come back with a tremendous
appreciation that the legislative process works if you have a
fair judicial system and a legal system that works as well, a
police system that works as well.
Mr. Lord.
Mr. Lord. Just briefly, I would ask the agencies to focus
on the long term and on projects that work, where you do
achieve meaningful results. In the past, it's been more of a
shotgun approach. Also with the law enforcement people in
particular, I think they need to adopt more of that
orientation. They continually stress the importance of
promoting the so-called cop to cop relationship, which we
acknowledge is important. But it's not really, we view that
more as a subordinate objective.
Mr. Shays. Thank you. And your final, Mr. Ford.
Mr. Ford. I'm not going to add anything. I agree with the
comments my colleagues just made, and I think we shouldn't
necessarily give up these type of programs. I think there's
value in them, we just have to do a good job of making sure we
do it right.
Mr. Shays. I'm always grateful for GAO's participation. You
are a wonderful resource for Government and particularly the
legislature. Also the agencies that I think make changes as a
result of your work. I think you all have an interesting job,
frankly. I think this must have been a fascinating effort to
have worked on.
So we thank you for being here. We're going to get to our
next panel after this vote. Thank you, gentlemen.
[Recess.]
Mr. Shays. I will call this hearing to order. I appreciate
the patience of our second panel.
We have Daniel Rosenblum, Deputy Coordinator for U.S.
Assistance to the Newly Independent States, Department of
State; Viviann Gary, Director, Office of Democracy and
Governance, Europe and Eurasia Bureau, U.S. Agency for
International Development; Bruce Swartz, Deputy Assistant
Attorney General, Criminal Division, Department of Justice;
Peter Prahar, Deputy Director of the Office of Asian, African
and European NIS Programs, Bureau of International Narcotics
and Law Enforcement, Department of State; and Pamela Hicks,
Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Law Enforcement,
Department of the Treasury.
I welcome all our panelists. I will ask them to stand, so I
may swear them in. Raise your right hands, please.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Shays. I note for the record that our witnesses have
responded in the affirmative.
We have a 5-minute rule, but frankly, we go over it,
particularly since you've waited. If we could clearly be under
10, that would be nice. But I want you to make your statement,
make sure it's part of the record. We will go down the list as
I read it and in the order that you're seated.
So Mr. Rosenblum, you're first. Thank you for being here,
all of you.
STATEMENTS OF DANIEL ROSENBLUM, DEPUTY COORDINATOR OF U.S.
ASSISTANCE TO THE NEWLY INDEPENDENT STATES, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
STATE; VIVIANN GARY, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF DEMOCRACY AND
GOVERNANCE, BUREAU FOR EUROPE AND EURASIA, U.S. AGENCY FOR
INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT; BRUCE SWARTZ, DEPUTY ASSISTANT
ATTORNEY GENERAL, CRIMINAL DIVISION, DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE;
PETER PRAHAR, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF ASIAN, AFRICAN AND
EUROPEAN/NIS PROGRAMS, BUREAU FOR INTERNATIONAL NARCOTICS AND
LAW ENFORCEMENT AFFAIRS; AND PAMELA J. HICKS, ACTING DEPUTY
ASSISTANT SECRETARY (LAW ENFORCEMENT) OF THE TREASURY
Mr. Rosenblum. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I'm glad to be here today representing Ambassador Bill
Taylor, who is the coordinator of U.S. Assistance to the NIS.
He's traveling overseas today and couldn't be here.
We're grateful for the opportunity to talk to the
subcommittee about this GAO study of rule of law programs in
the NIS. As you noted, I've submitted a written statement for
the record, but I'd just like to briefly highlight a few of the
major points in that statement.
My colleagues on the panel here represent the agencies that
plan and implement the actual rule of law related programs.
They'll be able to address your substantive questions about the
objectives of those programs, some of their successes, some
failures. But to help set the stage for them, I'll emphasize a
few general points about U.S. Government work in this area.
First, we believe that U.S. foreign assistance programs are
a tool of our foreign policy, so they should always support an
identifiable U.S. national interest. We have to be able to draw
a clear line between any particular program and a specific U.S.
interest.
Now, do the rule of law programs in the NIS pass that test?
We think that they do and that they serve both short and long
term U.S. interests. My colleagues can give you some specific
examples of this. There's a clear short term benefit when these
programs promote better law enforcement cooperation which helps
us fight against transnational crime, against drug trafficking
and so on.
There's also a long term benefit in helping these countries
establish more transparent rules based legal systems. Countries
that have firmly established rule of law are more likely to
observe basic human rights. They are more sympathetic to U.S.
foreign policy priorities. They are better trading partners and
better places for U.S. investors to make money.
Second, as I think my colleagues' testimony will make
clear, our strategy for rule of law programs in the NIS has
evolved over the past 7 years. The GAO report acknowledges
this, and I want to emphasize it. Probably we were overly
optimistic in earlier years about the degree of commitment that
the governments of the region had to establishing rule of law.
Now we're willing to wait until we see clear evidence of
political will before we offer technical assistance directly to
the governments. We can talk about some specific examples of
this during the question period.
Also over time, we've given more weight to what we call
bottom up reform. By that I mean demand for rule of law from
the citizens of these countries. This means, concretely, that
we're doing more work with non-governmental organizations,
helping establish legal clinics, something that was referred to
in the GAO panel, promoting community policing and generally
focusing more in the provinces and less in capital cities, like
Moscow.
We can't neglect the top down reform altogether, because
those centrally run institutions ultimately have to change,
too. But when we're stymied at the top, there are still
significant efforts we can make at the grass roots.
As we mentioned in the written comments that the State
Department submitted on the GAO report, this is one area we
think was given less than full treatment in the report. We
understand that they couldn't look at every aspect of our
programs, because of time and manpower constraints, but we do
wish that they had been able to take a more thorough look at
some of our exchange programs and some of the grant programs to
NGO's that are working on this bottom up reform.
Finally, Mr. Chairman, a word about coordination.
Coordinating the efforts of 20 or so U.S. Government agencies
who are involved in our overall assistance program, now I'm
speaking beyond just rule of law, is a continual challenge.
With regard to rule of law, the challenge is especially great.
That's because achieving rule of law in these post-communist
societies is a very complex matter. It touches on practically
every part of society and it involves not only getting the
right laws and the right institutions in place, but it involves
also changing attitudes and behaviors that have taken shape
over decades, even centuries.
Because rule of law is a complex issue and requires a
comprehensive approach, what we've done is to mobilize a wide
variety of agencies to implement the programs, trying to take
advantage of the diverse talents that we have within the U.S.
Government. But an inevitable side effect of having so many
agencies involved is that there are going to be questions, for
example, of jurisdiction, who should be responsible for one
area or another, and there may be differences of philosophy and
approach among agencies.
But even though it's a challenge, we're continually working
at it and trying to improve it and we think we're doing better
as time goes by. I can address this issue in more detail if the
subcommittee is interested during the question period.
Now I'll turn the floor to my colleagues, and I look
forward to responding to any questions you may have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Rosenblum follows:]
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[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9866.017
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9866.018
Mr. Shays. Thank you very much.
Ms. Gary.
Ms. Gary. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the
committee. Thank you for inviting USAID to testify today on the
impact of the law assistance activities in the former Soviet
Union. We're pleased the committee has taken interest in this
area, because it's a key component of our efforts to achieve
democracy, good governance and a functional market economy in
these countries.
I too would like to respectfully ask that my written
testimony be put on the record and I will just try to summarize
some of the key points.
Before going on, I'd like to say that we clearly do not
entertain any delusions about our ability to make fundamental
change in these countries. The challenges are really
formidable. We also don't want to all suggest that rule of law
programs produce sweeping changes. They clearly haven't. But
that said, we do believe that a lot has been accomplished and
that there has been significant progress, especially given the
limitations that were mentioned by my colleague as well.
Some of those limitations include the level of resources,
not that we're criticizing the allocation of funds, but
relative to the task at hand, AID has spent approximately $90
million over 9 years for 12 countries. Given the type of change
you're looking for, that really is not much. Again, the
magnitude of the change, you're basically talking about
countries that didn't have frameworks for modern legal systems,
their judiciaries were totally subjugated to the executive
branch, they basically had to transform every public sector
institution and so forth.
There's also a limited time. Unlike Latin America, we have
only been working in this region for less than a decade.
Actually our rule of law program started after the programs for
economic reform. They started probably in about 1992, 1993.
So that said, we did, when we started in this region, we
did adopt many of the lessons learned that we had learned from
places like Latin America. That included the need to
concentrate efforts on building constituencies for reform
outside of the government as well as inside the government. And
have done a lot of thought in terms of targeting who are the
key reformers in these countries, who can we work with and who
will make a difference.
Two is that we paid more attention to implementation of law
rather than just drafting of laws. While there was a lot of
drafting originally because there were no constitutions and so
forth, there's been a really heavy emphasis for building
capacity of courts and agencies to implement.
Also one of the lessons that was learned is that you don't
rush in full scale, that you do deal with pilot activities and
see how they work. You're not trying to impose your systems on
them en masse.
Finally, very important is that law revision and so forth
has got to be as fully participatory as much as possible. That
is, if you're going to get people who really want to play the
game they've got to be part of making the rules of those games.
One of the significant differences from the programming in
Latin America, however, in Latin America it was found that
working with the judiciary was often not particularly useful,
because they had calcified them, in a way. While in the former
Soviet Union, we found exactly the opposite. The judiciary in
some ways was such a stepchild of the system that there was a
real desire for reform from the members of the judiciary and
people who supported judicial reform, so that many of our
programs have now been targeted to the judiciary.
We have in this area then contributed to some real change,
and we think lasting change. There's been change in attitudes
of judges and other in places like Uzbekistan for strong and
independent judiciary. They realize that they need to curb the
power of the plutocracy.
In Armenia, you've gotten a legislative foundation for
modern legal systems. In Georgia, you've empowered the
judiciary to actually take control of their own reform process.
In Russia, you've actually started establishing a sound
framework for laws.
I wanted to just quote from one of the people who have been
working from the Vermont Bar Association that USAID has
supported and working for 10 years in Russia. His assessment is
that the court system in Russia now is better funded, judges
are better paid and better trained, and the judiciary is in
control of its own destiny and has leaders with a vision of the
future that is in part based on U.S. models. We think that does
have significance.
With that said, we also at AID have a very extensive
monitoring and evaluation process. We start off with country
development strategies which are reviewed by all agencies or
open to all agencies for review, where we set long term
targets. We then have a whole series of annual reviews in terms
of our resource requests for the next year, evaluating how well
we have done in our results up until that time.
We also use external evaluations and internal evaluations.
It's about a seven-or eight-tiered process that we use, and do
not believe that any one indicator or one set of indicators, be
they internal or external, are what is needed to really
evaluate a system in terms of the type of assistance that you
should be providing. So we do believe that our system is fairly
good, not perfect, and it is in fact getting better. We are
working on trying to increase the effectiveness of our
indicator system.
I wanted to make another comment. In terms of keeping
political space open, I think that in talking about the idea of
political will, which is tremendously important for any of our
programs, political will is not a model. You have to find the
targets of political space where you can and try to keep them
open. One should not walk away if in fact there are places
within society that you can work.
I think the examples that one can really use in that sense
is that anyone asked a year ago if you should be working in
places that had no political will on the top, such as Croatia
or Serbia, people would have said, of course not, you don't
work there. But I think a lot of our efforts in countries like
that, working with the media reformers, civil society people,
made a tremendous difference when the opportunity arose. I
think that we have to keep that in mind.
Again, in many cases, that doesn't have to be a lot of
money. But it really is important that you make sure that you
keep the political space open in countries.
Finally, I want to agree that it's certainly within our
national interest to help create open and transparent and
accountable systems that people can trust, that they can
adjudicate their grievances. This is essential in order to
prevent conflict and also to promote trade and investment.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Gary follows:]
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Mr. Shays. Thank you very much, Ms. Gary.
Mr. Swartz.
Mr. Swartz. Mr. Chairman, thank you for inviting the
Department of Justice to testify today on the important issue
of rule of law assistance to the Newly Independent States. With
the subcommittee's permission, I would like to submit my full
statement for the record and summarize my testimony this
morning.
Mr. Shays. You can proceed. It will be part of the record.
Mr. Swartz. Thank you.
There are four points I would like to make today. The first
is that rule of law assistance is a vital part of our
international crime control strategy. As the subcommittee is
well aware, international crime has been denominated a national
security threat to the United States and to its citizens.
In the international crime control strategy developed by
the Departments of Justice, State and Treasury, one of our
primary goals was to extend the first line of defense against
international crime abroad. As that strategy recognizes, one of
the key components of extending the defense abroad is to ensure
that we have effective law enforcement partners in foreign
countries to establish a seamless web of cooperation.
The strategy itself points out that can be accomplished
only if the United States is in a position to provide
assistance to those countries that are not at a stage where
they can be effective law enforcement partners.
The second point I would like to make is that the
Department of Justice, in implementing its rule of law
assistance to the Newly Independent States has constantly
sought to follow our international crime control strategy. That
is, our goal has not simply been to assist the citizens of the
Newly Independent States, important as that goal is, but to try
and assure the safety of the citizens of the United States of
America.
In order to do so, we have sought to ensure law enforcement
partnerships, wherever possible, in the Newly Independent
States, on all levels of the criminal justice system. At the
prosecutorial level, the Department of Justice has placed
resident legal advisors, experienced Federal prosecutors, in a
number of the Newly Independent States.
Those prosecutors have not only been advocates for improved
training and trainers of prosecutors, their foreign
prosecutorial counterparts, but have also become trusted
advisors. Those prosecutors, as I was stating, have not only
been important in terms of the prosecutorial training that they
have done for their foreign counterparts, but they have also,
because of their long term status in the country and their
expertise, become trusted advisors on issues of law reform.
With regard to the judiciary, working in cooperation with
the ABA-CEELI program, the Department of Justice has placed a
number of criminal law liaisons in the Newly Independent
States. Those law liaisons have been important in helping
develop an independent judiciary. Finally, and not least in
this regard, the Department of Justice has established a number
of relationships at the police level through training by our
Federal law enforcement agents, both in country and also at the
ILEA in Budapest.
The third point I would like to make is that we feel that
while it is clear there are many obstacles to success in NIS,
that we have made significant strides through the rule of law
assistance that we've provided on the law enforcement side. In
Russia and Georgia, for instance, new criminal codes have been
drafted, and that's an important development not only for the
peoples of those countries but also for our citizens, since any
predicate for effective law enforcement cooperation and to
ensure that crimes are prosecuted in those countries, rather
than flowing at the United States, can only take place when the
legal framework exists.
Even the GAO report at pages 12 to 14 recognizes the
significant assistance that Federal law enforcement has
provided in the drafting of constitutions and laws in the Newly
Independent States. We believe that is no small achievement.
Similarly, with regard to the judiciary, again we believe
that there has been significant success in helping to create an
independent judiciary in a number of Newly Independent States.
To be sure, we are not there yet. But again, without our
assistance we don't think we'd be anywhere near that close to
the place where we need to have our effective counterparts to
be.
Again, I would refer the subcommittee to pages 16 and 17 of
the GAO report, which catalogs some of those successes. And in
all of the Newly Independent States, our law enforcement
agencies have laid the foundations for partnerships with their
foreign counterparts, partnerships that have already borne
fruit in terms of joint investigations that directly affect and
benefit U.S. citizens.
Again, the GAO report notes this on page 26, but we feel
does not give it significant attention. This we feel is among
the most important of our accomplishments, that we have created
the kind of networks that will benefit U.S. citizens.
My fourth point is that although we believe that the GAO
has undervalued the successes that we've attained thus far, we
agree that changes do need to be made and improvements can be
made. As the report itself notes, and as the panel noted
earlier today, those improvements already have begun over the
past several years. We fully agree with the idea of moving
toward a more project based approach toward funding of rule of
law assistance. And we believe in trying to, wherever we can,
develop effective methods of testing what we have accomplished.
We'd like to stress again, however, that it's not only
sustainable institutions, but sustainable relationships that
we're working toward here. And we believe particularly with
regard to the latter, we have had some signal successes thus
far.
In conclusion, we believe that the Department of Justice's
rule of law assistance has been of significant value, not only
the citizens of the Newly Independent States, but to the
citizens of the United States. To be sure, much remains to be
done. But non-engagement in our view is not a realistic
alternative. It is essential for our law enforcement interests
and for the protection of our citizens that we remain fully
engaged in seeking to create stable law enforcement partners in
the Newly Independent States.
Thank you. I'll be happy to answer your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Swartz follows:]
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Mr. Shays. Thank you, Mr. Swartz.
Mr. Prahar.
Mr. Prahar. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman and distinguished members of the committee,
thank you for the opportunity to talk about the direction of
our rule of law programs in the Newly Independent States. You
have a copy of my prepared testimony and I request that you
accept that testimony.
Mr. Shays. That will be part of the record, as well as the
statements of all.
Mr. Prahar. Thank you.
Today I am going to summarize to you the response of my
bureau, the Bureau for International Narcotics and Law
Enforcement Affairs of the Department of State to the GAO
report. I'm happy to report that INL has already undertaken
initiatives to address the issues raised in the report prior to
the GAO study. We believe that the fundamental restructuring
which we have undertaken, which includes INL's assistance
programs not just in the NIS, but worldwide, addresses many of
the criticisms in the GAO report.
First, let me stress that we agree with the GAO and our
colleagues here today that the difficult political and economic
conditions in the region have hampered effective implementation
of rule of law programs during this period. We think, however,
that we've seen some real progress. My colleagues have provided
examples of that here today and in their response to the
report.
That said, we also agree with the GAO that INL managed
assistance in the 1995-1998 period fell short in the area of
sustainability and monitoring. Based on lessons learned in the
NIS and worldwide, we have substantially modified our approach.
Our new approach, begun in fiscal year 2001, has two key
elements. The first is that it is project based. The second is
that initial decisionmaking is decentralized.
By project based, we mean interagency, multiyear and
multidisciplinary law enforcement projects, rather than
isolated standalone training courses. We built into these
project designs sustainability and measures of effectiveness.
Second, regarding decisionmaking being decentralized, the
chief of mission, that is the Ambassador, decides now what to
request and determines the priority of the assistance and
training requirements for his or her country. The chief of
mission works with the law enforcement working group at post,
comprised of representatives of all law enforcement agencies at
the post to make these determinations.
Let me describe our project based approach and our methods
for ensuring sustainability in a little more detail. We know
full well that our projects cannot succeed without host
government commitment and will. Because of this, we have asked
our missions in the NIS to develop, negotiate and sign letters
of agreement with the governments in the NIS region. These
letters of agreement represent host government engagement in
and commitment to the bilateral relationship. A LOA, a letter
of agreement, clearly describes the law enforcement programs we
have agreed to cooperate on, sets forth what is expected of
both governments, and describes the measures that will be used
to evaluate the success of the programs.
LOAs have been a powerful management and internal control
tool in Latin America, Africa, Asia and the Middle East. And
they will be in the NIS region, as well.
While we're in general agreement with the recommendations
of the GAO report, I would like to draw your attention to one
comment that may be somewhat misleading. The GAO report notes
that about $33 million in INL managed funding for fiscal years
1995 to 2000 had been obligated for law enforcement training
and other assistance that has not yet been provided. The report
may leave the misimpression that these funds may not be used in
the most effective way, and that the activities they fund will
be subject to the management weaknesses identified in the GAO
report.
I wish to assure the committee that we at INL have been
working with the law enforcement agencies to ensure that the
$33 million in undelivered courses and assistance in the
pipeline is fully integrated in the comprehensive and
sustainable projects. I'm happy to report that the law
enforcement agencies are cooperating fully with INL in this
effort.
I would also like to draw your attention to one other point
in the report. The report failed to take note of the extensive
work with NGO's that INL has undertaken. In the last 5 years,
INL has funded over $6 million in community policing, domestic
violence and anti-trafficking grants with NGO's and
universities, working especially with Russian and Ukrainian
counterparts. We are proud of these programs and believe they
are effective in contributing to the development of rule of law
cultures.
In conclusion, I would like to stress the importance of
assistance programs and their relevance to national security.
My law enforcement colleagues have briefly addressed the
specific crime threats to the United States from these
countries and have highlighted the role that assistance
programs play in developing competent and reliable foreign
counterparts. It is thanks in part to the assistance from INL
managed programs that our U.S. law enforcement colleagues can
operate successfully against transnational crime threats to the
United States.
In a nutshell, if we do not implement programs that develop
effective institutions, U.S. law enforcement agencies will have
no one with whom to cooperate. That is the challenge before us
and what we are trying to accomplish.
Thank you. I'd be happy to answer questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Prahar follows:]
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Mr. Shays. Thank you, Mr. Prahar.
Ms. Hicks.
Ms. Hicks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I'm pleased to be here today to discuss Treasury's role in
providing rule of law assistance to the 12 Newly Independent
States of the former Soviet Union. While Treasury has provided
advice on drafting money laundering and other legislation in
these countries, most of our rule of law assistance has been
law enforcement training by our law enforcement bureaus and
offices. In providing training to these countries, Treasury and
its bureaus worked closely with the State and Justice
Department.
In the area of international law enforcement training,
Treasury has two main goals. In the shorter term, we work to
build relationships with our law enforcement counterparts that
enable us to work together on particular matters, improving
both nations' ability to protect their citizens from criminal
activity. In the longer term, we seek to support broad U.S.
Government efforts aimed at assisting the foreign government in
establishing and maintaining fair and effective law enforcement
institutions.
Today I will briefly outline our efforts to design,
coordinate and evaluate our training programs to meet these
goals. Of course, international training is an interagency
effort. Treasury and its bureaus provide international law
enforcement training as part of a broader plan for a country or
region.
In coordination with the Departments of State and Justice,
and the host nation, Treasury and its bureaus lend their
expertise in a wide variety of areas. In recent years, we have
provided law enforcement training to the Newly Independent
States both directly and through the International Law
Enforcement Academy in Budapest. Among other things, this
training has been on firearms trafficking, excise tax
administration, forensics, economic fraud, counterfeiting and
money laundering.
The majority of training courses that we have provided to
these countries has been Customs Service training on various
types of smuggling, including drug trafficking, weapons of mass
destruction and child pornography. As detailed in my written
statement, Operation Blue Orchid, a recent U.S. Customs case
with the Moscow City Police, provides a useful illustration of
our training efforts. In Blue Orchid, Customs worked with a
unit within the Moscow City Police to take down a Web site in
Russia that depicted the sexual and physical abuse of children.
Most of the Web site's customers were located in the United
States. The investigation led to enforcement action in Russia,
the United States and other countries.
While working the Blue Orchid investigation, Customs
provided training, funded by the State Department, at Customs'
cyber-smuggling center to the Moscow City Police, the same unit
that was working on the investigation. The training helped the
Moscow police pursue the case, and the success of Blue Orchid,
in turn, reinforced the training. The joint investigation also
strengthened Customs' working relationship with the Moscow
police.
As a result of Blue Orchid, Russian authorities are better
equipped to combat child pornography on the internet. Just as
importantly, Customs' improved relationship with the Moscow
city police has enhanced Customs' ability to enforce U.S. laws
relating to child pornography.
While we are pleased when we have success on a particular
case, our goal is to sustain the progress we make and improve
the overall functioning of the foreign law enforcement
institutions. The primary way we seek to accomplish this is
through our coordination with other U.S. agencies, particularly
the Departments of State and Justice and the host nation. We
support the Department of State's efforts to increase the
sustainability of the international training program.
In addition to our work with State, we also seek to make
sure our own efforts support improvements in foreign law
enforcement institutions that are sustainable. Among other
things, we build relationships with foreign law enforcement,
provide the trainer courses, and evaluate the training provided
to make necessary adjustments.
We continue to believe that international law enforcement
training serves U.S. interests. It enables us to improve our
relationships with our overseas counterparts to better protect
the American public from international crime. In addition, by
assisting foreign governments and developing effective law
enforcement agencies, we believe we can stop criminal activity
before it reaches the United States. And in the long term, it
supports the creation of stable democratic societies.
We have worked closely with the Departments of State and
Justice to improve our international training efforts, and we
are committed to continuing this cooperation.
In closing, I want to thank the committee for its interest
in this important issue. And I'd be happy to answer any
questions.
Mr. Shays. Thank you, Ms. Hicks. We are very interested in
this issue, and we appreciate the good work of my staff and I
appreciate the quality of both panels that are before us.
I wonder if you all have thought about it yourself, the
cold war is over, but I feel the world is a more dangerous
place. I also feel that for a variety of reasons, some of which
are easy to understand, others which make me wonder, I feel
that Americans are particularly targets around the world, that
there is, Tianneman Square, in the United States, was viewed as
the hero to the extent that we had a system that people wanted
to model. We're learning today that Chinese, the young people
in China have tremendous antagonism for the United States. It
was really, candidly, a surprise to some of us.
Which is to say, when we set up these programs, how do you
assure these host countries that we aren't trying to
proselytize American democracy and American ways, and that we
are simply trying to have them understand how they can have
this system of law that works for them?
Let me say it this way. First, is this the problem, or am I
perceiving a part of it that doesn't exist? Do some people
question our motives and so on, and then how do you deal with
it?
Mr. Rosenblum. Some people do question our motives. Some
people in these societies do, and sometimes people in the
governments. I think it's definitely country specific. There's
a lot of variety of diversity among the NIS countries in that
regard. And my colleagues have more probably specific examples
they could cite. But I think we're particularly sensitive to
this reaction, or we tend to get it in Russia, frankly, because
of the past history of the cold war and the superpower
confrontation. A little more sensitivity to not wanting to be
lectured at by Americans.
I'm talking very generally, though, not specifically about
in the law enforcement area. Again, my colleagues can confirm
whether that's the case there.
In the other NIS, there's much more willingness to listen
to American models and experience, not always to apply it,
unfortunately, as we've seen. So I guess it is a factor, and
I'd say it's particularly a factor with Russia. I'd be
interested if others have comments on that.
Mr. Shays. I think what we'll do is just go down the list.
Ms. Gary. I think from a USAID perspective, we have found
clearly that is something that is not particularly useful to
do, that is, the systems that we have are very unique to the
United States. What we need to do is define those aspects of
the systems which are best studied, or things that other groups
can learn from. I think that we have particular expertise in
such areas, certainly in civil society, we have one of the most
robust civil societies in the world. There are a lot of
experiences here that our groups can transmit to others,
likewise in the local government arena.
So I think that we really do try to take out those aspects
that are best suited, or that we believe these countries can
benefit from without imposing our system. Likewise we've found
that it's incredibly useful to do exchanges within the region,
that groups learn a lot from each other in terms of some of the
things that we've done in Georgia, for instance, in terms of
the examination for judges there, the system that the Georgians
have taken over themselves. We've been able to take some people
from Kazakhstan and other places to look to see how that's
worked. So we've found that has been a very useful tool.
Mr. Shays. My staff made the comment, rule of law versus
rule of our law, but then the next comment was parachuting in
dozens of U.S. lawyers could be seen as a hostile act.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Swartz. Even in the United States. [Laughter.]
Mr. Chairman, it is certainly an issue that we have to be
sensitive to throughout the countries we deal with. On the law
enforcement side, we go to great lengths to stress that what
we're talking about is a law enforcement partnership. To be
sure, we particularly in the legislative and constitutional
area, do try and advance the constitutional rights, the
criminal codes and procedures that we feel are appropriate. But
we try to do it within the context of the systems of the Newly
Independent States and explain why we're doing this, rather
than try and impose it from above, not that we are in a
position, obviously, to impose directly.
On the law enforcement side, in particular the training of
law enforcement agents, I think that there's a real advantage
to our law enforcement agents being able to share their
experiences, the difficulties that they themselves have faced
in law enforcement matters, to elicit the kinds of reactions
from their counterparts and to suggest again that this is a
common fight that we have against international crime. It
doesn't always go across all areas of crime, but we think it
has had a successful result so far in many areas of crime.
Mr. Prahar. Well, I certainly agree that it's a legitimate
concern. I'm afraid that those that have worked abroad many,
many years can find bad examples of people coming with their
flags flying and clearly proselytizing for a way.
Our programs, I think, begin with an awareness of our own
uniqueness. That's particularly true in the legal field. We're
working with our counterparts in the NIS, the government
completely different or rapidly evolving legal system. A lot of
what we do here in this country isn't going to apply to them.
At the same time, we are proselytizing. I do represent the
United States abroad, I am very proud of our systems, and don't
have any problems sharing good experiences with them. To
address that issue, though, we have certain techniques. Many
times it behooves us to get out of front row center in these
programs. Here in INL we work, for example, through the U.N.
On occasion, we work through NGO's. We can work through the
financial action task force on money laundering issues. We
don't necessarily have to be the lead on these, and we can
accomplish the objectives or help these countries accomplish
the objectives we want through that. We don't necessarily need
a bilateral program every single time.
Mr. Shays. Thank you, Mr. Prahar.
Ms. Hicks.
Ms. Hicks. Well, in the law enforcement training area, I
think we do it in a couple of ways. I think first of all, our
daily relationships, particularly on joint investigations, is
very helpful. Because it gives both nations sort of the same
goal, and allows them to sort of work in their country and us
in our country and communicate back and forth and share
information. So I think that helps build a trust level among
the law enforcement entities.
On the training courses, we have had evaluations in past
years of criticisms of the training, that it was too American
focused. We have worked to overcome those criticisms by
focusing a lot more on the criminal threats that the host
nation faces. We now do a lot more interaction, I think, within
the embassy and with State and Justice to try to address the
crime problem as it exists in that country within the legal
framework that the law enforcement folks have to work in there.
For example, Customs now sometimes, often in their courses
on border control, go out to the border control areas of that
country to see first hand the equipment that they have and the
kinds of challenges that they face daily there, as opposed to
just limiting it to the classroom and sort of theoretical
discussions of border control.
And we also encourage in the classroom a free flow of
discussion about the situation as it exists in the host country
as well as we get feedback on the courses that we do about how
useful the course was, what was most useful, what wasn't
useful, those kinds of things, so that we can constantly make
adjustments to the courses going forward, because we want them
to be useful to the host nation and not just seem like you have
to suddenly do everything our way or there's no other right way
to do it. So we have tried to address that.
Mr. Shays. Thank you. When I look at, as we've been
reviewing the papers preparing for this hearing and hearing
testimony, last week we had testimony from a gentleman named
Mr. Slovekian and his wife, Maria, Resevati. He was in jail for
30 years for a crime he never committed, fingered by a corrupt
FBI informant. And the FBI knew, Chelsea police knew and the
Boston police knew and Massachusetts State Police knew. And you
think, my God, this can't happen, and it did. She visited him
for 30 years.
Now, I'm mentioning that so we're not self righteous about
our system and realize that there are sometimes some real
breakdowns. People in four different law enforcement bodies
knew that this man was clearly innocent of a crime he didn't
commit. But at the same time, I think of how much we take for
granted the system we have.
If you were to tell me in a system of rule of law whether
honest police are the most important, honest prosecutors and
judges, honest politicians, honest bureaucrats, and I'd even
say honest citizens, but I'm going to leave citizens out for
now, and bureaucrats, of those three, honest police, honest
prosecutors and judges and honest politicians, which becomes
the most important? Anybody thought about that? And I'd like to
know what you say it. And then we'll get to some other
questions.
Mr. Swartz. Mr. Chairman, although this may not be a
completely satisfactory answer, one thing that we have found in
our rule of law assistance is that you can't build any real
success without working on the honesty of all of those levels.
That is, if you train the police, if you establish a vetted
police unit, if you have, there are corrupt prosecutors or
prosecutors are not prepared to go forward with the cases, it
doesn't accomplish anything. Of course, the same is true with
the judiciary.
I'm not sure that I can say which is the most important to
work on, but I think it's fair to say we believe that all of
them have to be worked on simultaneously. And I think that does
go to the kind of project based approach that the Department of
State has referred to in its testimony.
Mr. Shays. Does anybody else want to respond?
Mr. Rosenblum. I would say that, not talking specifically
about our assistance, but about what's most important to make
rule of law work, the one that we have the least control over I
think is the most important, and that is the honest leadership,
the honest government. Because I think it all starts from
there. That gets to the question of political will that the GAO
identified in their report.
So you know, we can work in all of these other areas. But
ultimately, it does come down to that leadership and political
will, I think. And that, we have to recognize that. I think
that has to make us a little modest about what we're ultimately
going to be able to do without that element.
Mr. Shays. You can tell them how the process should work,
you can do even some preaching, but you need honest people to
make it work.
I'd like each of you to name one lasting accomplishment of
a rule of law program you've funded. Why don't we start there,
a lasting accomplishment of a rule of law. We don't have to
take it in order.
Ms. Gary. I can start if you'd like.
Mr. Shays. It's not a trick question, but one that you've
said, my gosh, this is a best practice, it's one of wonderful
success, tell us about it.
Ms. Gary. I'd like to say that the success and lesson
learned from that success that I would probably take Georgia
and the examinations that they have instituted for their
judges, that they now have taken over that system of doing
examinations, over 80 percent of the judges have been tested.
There are people that have been actually thrown off the courts
because they have not passed.
They also have an ethics group that also has gotten people
off the bench. And it's a process that they have taken
ownership of, and that's really important, that it is theirs
now and they will move it forward and they will have to adjust
it as it goes along. So that's what's really important.
The lesson learned, however, is that you can't claim
success and move on, because one of the things that was also
promised in that reform movement was that the judges would get
higher pay. That has not happened yet. So that is something
that one has to work with as well, to make sure that the
support structures also come through, so that as we often think
about in the political process arena, in terms of an election
does not a democracy make, I think that's true with any one of
these systems as well.
Mr. Shays. Thank you, Ms. Gary. Mr. Swartz.
Mr. Swartz. If I could focus on Georgia as well, I think
that the anti-corruption commission is something that we would
point to as significant and we believe lasting success. Time
will prove, of course, but it is something that the Department
of Justice worked on long and hard with our colleagues.
We also I think learned an important lesson from it, and
that is the importance of developing grass roots support for
something along these lines. Because it was not only by pushing
it to higher levels, but by helping to create grass roots for
anti-corruption, we were able to succeed in establishing that
commission.
Mr. Shays. Anyone else want to jump in? Don't be reluctant.
Mr. Prahar. In terms of success on the ground, I'll let my
colleagues speak for the successful projects that we've been
behind. The thing that we have come out of this, and it
relates, I think more to process, thinking back to 1995, our
programs were almost entirely counter-narcotics oriented. We
worked with three law enforcement agencies, DEA, Customs and
Coast Guard. We've spun up a relationship now involving 21 law
enforcement agencies, fielding programs all over the world,
including in the NIS. We have learned, I think, and the success
in our part, how to improve those programs in the future.
I have in mind not a success that I can show you today, but
a success that I think we're on the cusp of, and that's in
Georgia. Again we go back to Georgia. It's no coincidence
there, because the political will to make the necessary and
hard changes is evident. In 1998, we identified a requirement
for forensics laboratory upgrades in Georgia, and we put aside
some funding for that. We also, when we did our assessment,
determined that the political will to go forward and do the
hard and necessary in Georgia wasn't there. So we stopped.
And I think, Mr. Chairman, you asked the question earlier
of the GAO, do you know of any projects that have been stopped
in the face of adversity, and the answer is, I have many
examples of them. This is one of them. We could have pressed
ahead, we could have wasted our money, and we didn't.
Recently, a new minister of justice has come into office,
he's young, he's energetic, he's reform minded, he has the full
and unconditional backing of President Scheverdnaze, and we
spun up another assessment to Georgia to look at what we could
do there. On that assessment team, DOJ was represented by
several of its offices. ATF was represented, State was
represented, and later, Secret Service and FBI have expressed
an interest in this.
They looked at this kind of project that we could implement
there with the support of the host government and with the
cooperation of the host government and determine, you know, we
didn't simply need labs and lab equipment. We needed a holistic
approach, a soup to nuts program, which is what we are prepared
to implement now.
Mr. Shays. Thank you very much.
I think some of you have said why there were a success. But
it would be, let me just ask that we have three programs, well,
two plus a process, success. I'd love to know in Georgia why it
was a success, because there was the political will, pretty
much, and the level of involvement with the host country was my
other question, and that is because they are involved in this
process. You're nodding your head, Ms. Gary, but it doesn't
show up in the transcript.
Ms. Gary. Yes. That is the case, they had the political
will and they were very involved.
Mr. Shays. And you need to involve the host country.
Ms. Gary. Correct.
Mr. Shays. I feel a little bad asking what was a failure,
since some of you didn't step in and say what was a success.
But learning from our failures is important, too, right? And if
we had no failures then we aren't taking any risk. So I'd like
to know of a failure and I'd like to know why. Everybody's
looking at someone else. [Laughter.]
Mr. Swartz. We've had instances, Mr. Chairman, in which
we've found that our training, our proposed training, has
actually in a sense put the cart before the horse. Money
laundering in Russia, for instance, early on the Department of
Justice had received funding to do money laundering training in
Russia, and proceeded on the assumption, based on what we'd
been told by our Russian counterparts, that there was an
effective Russian money laundering law.
We quickly discovered, however, that was not the case. But
if one considers this a failure or a recognition of having to
pull back, as my colleague has suggested from State, we
realized that more fundamental work had to be done first, that
is, trying to establish the will to act against money
laundering and put legislation in place. But I think it is fair
to say that we've discovered in some instances that the work
that needed to be done was more fundamental than we originally
anticipated.
Ms. Gary. I would say that some of our efforts that we did
in terms of trying to work with parliamentary strengthening,
Congressional Research Services that we tried to develop, in
which we found one, were very costly, often inappropriate
technology, they really didn't have the infrastructure for it,
they didn't have the staff, and there was really not the
political will to do it.
Oftentimes they were unstable institutions, so those were
things that we found that made us back away from working in
that arena, as well as sometimes another institution that we
found very difficult to work with are legal education
institutions, because they also are not very prone to change.
What we've done in situations like that is help establish
oftentimes legal clinics that are then run by young, energetic
lawyers and provide access to citizens to the legal system that
they otherwise wouldn't have. So that's a matter of trying to
deal with when you've got a constraint, how you try to find
another way to deal with the issue.
Mr. Shays. Let me just ask you, how do you monitor and
evaluate programs? How does USAID monitor and evaluate
programs? What's the system you use?
Ms. Gary. We start off with something called a country
strategy that we usually develop, a 5-year strategy. We then
have what is called an R4, that's the resource results and
resource request. That's a yearly exercise in which you look at
all the programs that you have and you look at them again,
their progress against indicators and targets. You look to see
if they are in fact living up to the expectations that you had.
You do that again every year. And when you find that they
are not measuring up, you try to find out why, and you alter
the program accordingly.
An example that I would give right now that I think is
pretty apropos is, we have spent not an insignificant amount of
money in the rule of law in the Ukraine. Now for the Ukraine
rule of law, there is nothing budgeted for the next couple of
years in terms of the judiciary, until they in fact pass the
law of the judiciary, without which we do not think that we can
move forward.
Mr. Shays. What I need to do is break for no more than 5
minutes. I'm sorry, but I need to break for 5 minutes. My
intention is to conclude by 2 o'clock, so this will be short. I
may be less than 5 minutes, but no more than 5 minutes.
[Recess.]
Mr. Shays. I call this hearing to order.
And we were in the process of your telling how you
evaluate, Ms. Hicks, and I would like the same question for the
other agencies. How do you monitor and evaluate a program?
Ms. Swartz. Mr. Chairman, with regard to our different
types of programs, are of course, evaluated in different ways.
For the resident legal advisors and the criminal law liaisons,
that's an evaluation according to their success in actually
achieving not only prosecutorial training goals but more
importantly, becoming advisors to the states. I think we have
seen a remarkable level of success, particularly in the
legislative and constitutional area.
With regard to our training programs, we do a variety of
assessments, including evaluations filled out by those taking
the training, especially at ILEA. And it's constantly a process
of evaluating and reevaluating what those program offerings are
to see if they are effective, both for our colleagues, our
foreign counterparts, and from our point of view in terms of
developing those counterparts into effective partners.
Ms. Hicks. We evaluate our law enforcement training
similarly, I think, to the Justice Department. We participate
with Justice and State in tweaking the ILEA programs as is
necessary to make sure that they're being as effective as
possible. We also look at referrals from the things. And our
in-country are very helpful, as is the embassies where we don't
have people permanently stationed to make better determinations
of what agencies are being effective. Because sometimes they'll
want to train a certain agency, and having folks in the country
and working with the embassy, we know that perhaps that's not
the correct agency to be trained and those kinds of things.
So we do a variety of means too, to try to do it. And
constant communication, I think, between State and Justice and
Treasury on what we're finding out and what we see I think is
critical to effective monitoring.
Mr. Shays. So far, I guess what I'm kind of wrestling with
is how we measure success. It seems like it's somewhat of an
art form here. So I'm being assured that we are monitoring. I
guess what I'm not hearing is how we measure success or
failure.
Ms. Hicks. I think measuring success, even among U.S. law
enforcement agencies, is an art form, and it's difficult to do.
I think what we look for a lot of the times is our ability to
find people over in another country, an agency that we can work
with, and whether the agency is improving its ability to work
with us or not. Because oftentimes that speaks to larger
institutional issues about integrity and effectiveness and
those kinds of things.
For example, where we have countries where we have a unit
that we can work with, we develop more confidence in them and
we try to put more training into those. We hope to see joint
investigations out of it and information exchange.
Mr. Shays. This is a good lead in, though, to this
question, and I noticed that with Justice as well, in the
Justice and Treasury testimony, it appears the goals of
assistance are networking and protecting the United States, not
necessarily establishing the rule of law. And so what are the
goals of the rule of law program?
Mr. Swartz. Mr. Chairman, the rule of law used as the
largest rubric for this encompasses both the law enforcement
training, cop to cop, as the term is used, and trying to
develop the legal framework at the other extreme, that is the
constitutional and legislative framework. We believe both are
important and both have to be looked at as part of the measure
of success, in large part because it's not only the police
networks and the cooperation on particular cases, important as
that is.
But we have to be able to ensure or to try to work to
ensure that a foreign country has in place the ability to
prosecute crimes in that country, crimes that otherwise might
flow outside the country, and has the ability to criminalize
conduct that allows them to consider that conduct the
appropriate subject of mutual legal assistance for the United
States.
So all of those feed into our assessment of what a success
is. But we fully agree with Treasury's views on that as well.
Ms. Hicks. I would just add that we see the agency to
agency cooperation as a way of supporting overall rule of law
sort of from the bottom up as one of the earlier speakers
mentioned. Because having people within an agency committed to
doing it the right way can help lead to larger reforms that are
needed from the top down, which our law enforcement training,
we do train managers, but oftentimes we're trying to train sort
of the front line folks that are doing the day to day work.
But it I believe creates hopefully an environment that is
supportive of larger reforms, such as completely revamping the
way the border police operate or things such as that. So it is
designed, not only does it serve the United States in getting
us information, but we hope that it supports the larger,
broader institutional changes of the country.
Mr. Shays. Mr. Prahar, I just want to resolve what appears
to be an inconsistency, which may not be, and it deals with the
$35 million of obligated but under-utilized funds.
Mr. Prahar. That's right.
Mr. Shays. In part of your testimony you talk about, you
seem to give the impression that there isn't cooperation.
You're saying, there's a sense that you're saying you're not
getting cooperation, in another part you're saying you're
getting cooperation. Let me put it this way. The GAO is
questioning whether you're getting cooperation. And I'm
interested to have you respond to that. You say on page 3, I am
pleased to say that we are receiving excellent cooperation from
the law enforcement agencies.
Mr. Prahar. And that is correct.
Mr. Shays. And there's no question?
Mr. Prahar. There's no question about that. The pipeline
issue is one we've been wrestling with for about a year and a
half. What we're attempting to do and what I think we're
succeeding in doing is reprogramming these courses or
scheduling these courses in support of broad based projects.
The law enforcement agencies understand this entirely and are
fully supportive.
Mr. Shays. I'm going to have counsel just ask this
question.
Staff Counsel. The question is, in the Department's written
response to the GAO draft, the Department urged GAO to
recommend its cooperation, leaving, I think, the reasonable
impression that it wasn't there or you wouldn't need to urge
it. Now in testimony you say it is there. So did it appear
between?
Mr. Shays. This is not a trick question.
Mr. Prahar. No, it's not a trick question. I assume the
language was included in our written response to emphasize the
importance of this. We regard this as an extremely critical
process that we're engaged in and we haven't detected any
backsliding. But more words to the wise would be welcome.
No, the law enforcement agencies understand what we're
doing, are cooperating with what they're doing. We have the
same goal moving beyond courses to building institutions with
which we can work in the future. And that's it.
Mr. Shays. Let me ask you this question before we conclude.
In your testimony you discuss letters of agreement with the
host country. What preconditions are placed on the host country
in order to receive assistance? And what are the consequences
if the host country does not live up to the LOA?
Mr. Prahar. Letters of agreement have two parts to them.
The first part is the project design where we set out what is
going to be done, who's going to do it and how success is going
to be measured. In that area, we would obtain a commitment, for
example, from a host government to provide facilities, pay
staff, hire appropriate personnel, provide for transportation.
We would maybe provide some technical assistance, some
specialized equipment.
In the second portion of an LOA, we have what we call
standard provisions which give us a number of, make the rules
of the road clear, let's say, about such matters as privileges
and immunities of people participating in this duty free entry,
but also committing the host government to retaining personnel
that have received assistance and training for 2 years in
related positions, for guaranteeing that personnel receiving
this kind of assistance have been vetted on the human rights
score. And we've worked out language with the Congress, the so-
called Leahy language, that we incorporate into these LOAs.
And also that the personnel receiving training or
participating in our programs have not been convicted of
narcotics offenses.
What are the consequences of not entering into LOAs? We
suspended or stopped our program in Turkey last year when they
wouldn't sign an LOA. We have not gone ahead in Vietnam with
the program.
Mr. Shays. Fair enough. So you would discontinue.
I said I would ask Mr. Platts' question, what is the
relationship between freedom of the media and access to tools
like copiers and internet access and the rule of law? Was that
his question, more or less? The whole concept--it's the one
thing I left out when I gave you the list to choose from, and I
should have put freedom of the press, because Lord knows, that
makes a difference, too. It's kind of exciting to think of all
the things that make our country work.
And let me say this, if you could respond to the question
as you remember Mr. Platts asking it, also use this as your
opportunity to answer a question I didn't ask, and I want to be
done in 4 minutes. We'll start with you, Mr. Rosenblum.
Mr. Rosenblum. OK. I think the independent media, the
question of the role of the media is critical to ensuring rule
of law. It's a watchdog.
Mr. Shays. That's part of this process when we talk about
rule of law?
Mr. Rosenblum. It's very much part of it. And when the GAO
responded to the question, they noted that they hadn't looked
at the programs that specifically deal with media. We do have a
large part of our assistance portfolio that works on
strengthening independent media. It does that in more general
ways in terms of the viability, sustainability of media as a
business and giving incentives to journalists to do certain
kinds of investigative journalism.
But it hasn't been as targeted as perhaps it could be
specifically on the issues of corruption and rule of law.
There's a few examples of that, I know there's a program in
Ukraine and perhaps Viviann can mention, that does focus on
anti-corruption at the local level and involves some aspect of
media. But it is a critical component.
Ms. Gary. AID, in this region, particularly, has probably
the largest media program than we have anywhere else in the
world. They are usually anywhere from maybe 10 to 20 percent of
our democracy portfolios in any one of these countries, and it
is as Dan was saying, basically building independent media,
which we think is critically important.
Mr. Shays. I would think they are the only ones who can
basically call the question on the--I don't want to use your
time. Bottom line is, the other parts that don't work need to
be highlighted by an honest press.
Ms. Gary. Right. One of the other things I'd like to
mention as well is, in terms of effecting the rule of law,
because it is fairly amorphous, other things that the GAO did
not end up looking at is that we have a quite significant
program with the legal association for development of NGO's. We
also do a lot of work in rule of law for commercial in our
commercial area. So throughout our portfolio we really do
address issues of rule of law as well.
Mr. Shays. Thank you.
Ms. Swartz. Mr. Chairman, while media is not a central
focus of the Department of Justice's rule of law training, we
of course believe it is very important in helping to establish
the kind of honesty that you refer to in regard to police,
prosecutors and the judiciary.
Mr. Shays. Is there anything either on media or any last
point that you need to put on the record in literally 1 minute?
Ms. Hicks. Yes, I would just add, because if I let the
success question go by, I won't be allowed back in my
department, having failed to mention a success. We have managed
to create 53, working with other countries, financial
intelligence units around the world. And this is the structure
within a government to do the kind of financial analysis to
support money laundering investigations.
Of course, we have this thing to the point that the Justice
Department does with Russia's failure to pass their money
laundering law.
Mr. Shays. The interaction between law enforcement agencies
I think is absolutely critical. We've seen it in terms of how
we deal with terrorists and our work on that issue.
One last word. I have literally 4 minutes before the
machine could close. Any last comment?
Let me just say I appreciate your all being here. We
probably could go on longer but I don't want to keep you here
and wait if we just had 10 minutes after that. So we'll adjourn
now.
We may have a few questions we'll give you in writing,
given that we are ending shorter than I'd like. Thank you all
for being here, and I'm going to run off. This hearing is
adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 2 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned, to
reconvene at the call of the Chair.]
[Additional information submitted for the hearing record
follows:]
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