gressional committees the Annual Report on Democ-
racy. 
(2) CONTENTS.—The Annual Report on De-
mocracy shall contain the following: 
(A) EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.—An Executive 
Summary with a table listing every foreign 
country, together with a categorization of each 
country as ‘‘fully democratic’’, ‘‘partly demo-
cratic’’, or ‘‘nondemocratic’’. The Executive 
Summary shall contain a short narrative high-
lighting the status of democracy in each coun-
try categorized as partly democratic or non-
democratic. 
(i) DETERMINATION OF CATEGORIZA-
TION.—With respect to a country listed in 
the Executive Summary, the Secretary 
shall determine which of the categoriza-
tions specified under subparagraph (A) is 
appropriate by reference to the principles 
enshrined in the United Nations Charter, 
the Universal Declaration of Human 
Rights, the International Covenant on Civil 
and Political Rights, the United Nations 
Commission on Human Rights Resolution 
1499/57 (entitled ‘‘Promotion of the Right
to Democracy’’), the assessments used to 
determine eligibility for financial assistance 
disbursed from the Millennium Challenge 
Account, the assessments of nongovern-
mental organizations used to determine eli-
gibility to participate in the meetings of 
the Community of Democracies, and the 
standards established and adopted by the 
Community of Democracies. In addition, 
the categorization of a country should be 
informed by the general consensus regard-
ing the status of civil and political rights 
in such country by major nongovernmental 
organizations that conduct assessments of 
such conditions in such countries. 
(ii) DETERMINATION
OF
NONDEMO-
CRATIC CATEGORIZATION.— 
(I) IN GENERAL.—The Secretary 
shall categorize a country as non-
democratic if such country fails to 
satisfy any of the following require-
ments: 
(aa) All citizens of such 
county have the right to, and are 
not restricted in practice from,
fully and freely participating in 
the political life of such country 
regardless of gender, race, lan-
guage, religion, or beliefs. 
(bb) The national legislative 
body of such country and, if di-
rectly elected, the head of govern-
ment of such country, are chosen 
by free, fair, open, and periodic 
elections, by universal and equal 
suffrage, and by secret ballot. 
(cc) More than one political 
party in such country has can-
didates who seek elected office at 
the national level and such par-
ties are not restricted in their po-
litical activities or their process 
for selecting such candidates ex-
cept for reasonable administra-
tive requirements commonly ap-
plied in countries categorized as 
fully democratic. 
(dd) All citizens in such 
country have a right to, and are 
not restricted in practice from,
fully exercising the freedoms of 
thought, conscience, belief, peace-
ful assembly and association, 
speech, opinion, and expression, 
and such country has a free, 
independent, 
and 
pluralistic 
media. 
(ee) The current government 
of such country did not come to 
power in a manner contrary to 
the rule of law. 
(ff) Such country possesses 
an independent judiciary and the 
government of such country gen-
erally respects the rule of law. 
(II) 
ADDITIONAL
CONSIDER-
ATIONS.—Notwithstanding the satis-
faction by a country of the require-
ments specified under subclause (I), 
the Secretary may categorize a coun-
try as nondemocratic if the Secretary 
determines that such is appropriate 
after consideration of the principles 
specified under clause (i) with respect 
to such country.
(B) STATUS OF DEMOCRACY.—A descrip-
tion of each country categorized as partly demo-
cratic or nondemocratic in the Executive Sum-
mary, including— 
(i) an evaluation of trends over the 
preceding 12 months towards improvement 
or deterioration in the commitment to and 
protection of democratic principles, prac-
tices, values, institutions, and processes in 
each such country; 
(ii) an evaluation of the political 
rights and freedoms enjoyed by individuals 
in each such country and an evaluation of 
the factors that prevent each such country 
from being categorized as fully democratic; 
and 
(iii) for each country previously cat-
egorized as nondemocratic in the Executive 
Summary from the preceding year, an 
evaluation of any progress made over the 
previous calendar year towards achieving a 
categorization of partly democratic or fully 
democratic. 
(C) 
STRATEGY
FOR
NONDEMOCRATIC 
COUNTRIES.—An in-depth examination of each