Skip to main content

About LII / Get the law / Find a lawyer / Legal Encyclopedia / Help Out

22 USC § 8202 - Statement of policy

USCPrelim is a preliminary release and may be subject to further revision before it is released again as a final version.

Current through Pub. L. 113-99. (See Public Laws for the current Congress.)

It is the policy of the United States—

(1) to promote freedom and democracy in foreign countries as a fundamental component of United States foreign policy, along with other key foreign policy goals;

(2) to affirm fundamental freedoms and internationally recognized human rights in foreign countries, as reflected in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and to condemn offenses against those freedoms and rights as a fundamental component of United States foreign policy, along with other key foreign policy goals;

(3) to protect and promote such fundamental freedoms and rights, including the freedoms of association, of expression, of the press, and of religion, and the right to own private property;

(4) to commit to the long-term challenge of promoting universal democracy by promoting democratic institutions, including institutions that support the rule of law (such as an independent judiciary), an independent and professional media, strong legislatures, a thriving civil society, transparent and professional independent governmental auditing agencies, civilian control of the military, and institutions that promote the rights of minorities and women;

(5) to use instruments of United States influence to support, promote, and strengthen democratic principles, practices, and values, including the right to free, fair, and open elections, secret balloting, and universal suffrage, including by—

(A) providing appropriate support to individuals, nongovernmental organizations, and movements located in nondemocratic countries that aspire to live in freedom and establish full democracy in such countries; and

(B) providing political, economic, and other support to foreign countries and individuals, nongovernmental organizations, and movements that are willingly undertaking a transition to democracy; and

(6) to strengthen cooperation with other democratic countries in order to better promote and defend shared values and ideals.

It is the policy of the United States—

(1) to promote freedom and democracy in foreign countries as a fundamental component of United States foreign policy, along with other key foreign policy goals;

(2) to affirm fundamental freedoms and internationally recognized human rights in foreign countries, as reflected in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and to condemn offenses against those freedoms and rights as a fundamental component of United States foreign policy, along with other key foreign policy goals;

(3) to protect and promote such fundamental freedoms and rights, including the freedoms of association, of expression, of the press, and of religion, and the right to own private property;

(4) to commit to the long-term challenge of promoting universal democracy by promoting democratic institutions, including institutions that support the rule of law (such as an independent judiciary), an independent and professional media, strong legislatures, a thriving civil society, transparent and professional independent governmental auditing agencies, civilian control of the military, and institutions that promote the rights of minorities and women;

(5) to use instruments of United States influence to support, promote, and strengthen democratic principles, practices, and values, including the right to free, fair, and open elections, secret balloting, and universal suffrage, including by—

(A) providing appropriate support to individuals, nongovernmental organizations, and movements located in nondemocratic countries that aspire to live in freedom and establish full democracy in such countries; and

(B) providing political, economic, and other support to foreign countries and individuals, nongovernmental organizations, and movements that are willingly undertaking a transition to democracy; and

(6) to strengthen cooperation with other democratic countries in order to better promote and defend shared values and ideals.

Source

(Pub. L. 110–53, title XXI, § 2103,Aug. 3, 2007, 121 Stat. 527.)

The table below lists the classification updates, since Jan. 3, 2012, for this section. Updates to a broader range of sections may be found at the update page for containing chapter, title, etc.

The most recent Classification Table update that we have noticed was Friday, May 3, 2013

An empty table indicates that we see no relevant changes listed in the classification tables. If you suspect that our system may be missing something, please double-check with the Office of the Law Revision Counsel.

How To Use

Multiple entries for a section are listed most recent first, within the section.

The Session Year indicates which session of Congress was responsible for the changes classified. The Congress number forms the first part of the Public Law number; each Congress has two sessions.

Abbreviations used in the Description of Change column:

An empty field implies a standard amendment.
"new" means a new section or new note, or all new text of an existing section or note.
"nt" means note.
"nt [tbl]" means note [table].
"prec" means preceding.
"fr" means a transfer from another section.
"to" means a transfer to another section.
"omitted" means the section is omitted.
"repealed" means the section is repealed.
"nt ed change" and "ed change" - See the Editorial Classification Change Table [pdf].

The Public Law field is linked to the development of the law in the Thomas system at the Library of Congress.

The Statutes at Large field is linked to the text of the law, in the context of its volume of the Statutes at Large, at the Government Printing Office. Please note that it takes a while for these pages to get posted, so for very recent legislation, you need to look at the "enrolled" version at the Thomas site.

The Statutes at Large references have been rendered in the format used as page numbers in the Public Law web pages to which we link, to facilitate copy-paste into browser "find on this (web) page" tools. We are still working on a more direct link facility.

For serious comparison work, we suggest copying all or a portion of the Public Law text into your favorite text editor, for convenient content traversal and window control.

Sections with change type "new" are a special case, still under development. All are now listed, at the title level only.

You will find that occassionally a specific update you notice in a Public Law listed in a classification table will already have made it into the Code. We assume this is an artifact of the LRC edit process. The LII does not edit the LRC content.

General Reference

Refer to the LRC (Law Revision Council) for explanations about the US Code from the folks who put it all together.

You can look for information about what it is and is not, which titles are positive law, the schedule of Supplements, etc. Under download you can find the source data we use here (GPO locator files), as well as, PDF files that look just like the paper books (these may be rather large).

Refer to the Thomas site for changes that have not yet made it into the classification tables.

22 USC	Description of Change	Session Year	Public Law	Statutes at Large

LII has no control over and does not endorse any external Internet site that contains links to or references LII.