I 
116TH CONGRESS 
2D SESSION 
H. R. 5880 
To provide for the imposition of sanctions with respect to foreign countries 
that are in violation of international human rights law or international 
humanitarian law, and for other purposes. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
FEBRUARY 12, 2020 
Ms. OMAR introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee 
on Foreign Affairs, and in addition to the Committees on the Judiciary, 
Intelligence (Permanent Select), and Homeland Security, for a period to 
be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consider-
ation of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee 
concerned 
A BILL 
To provide for the imposition of sanctions with respect to 
foreign countries that are in violation of international 
human rights law or international humanitarian law, and 
for other purposes. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Stop Arming Human 
Rights Abusers Act’’. 
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TITLE I—SANCTIONS WITH RE-
SPECT TO FOREIGN COUN-
TRIES THAT ARE IN VIOLA-
TION 
OF 
INTERNATIONAL 
HUMAN 
RIGHTS 
LAW 
OR 
INTERNATIONAL 
HUMANI-
TARIAN LAW 
SEC. 101. DETERMINATION OF VIOLATIONS OF INTER-
NATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS LAW OR INTER-
NATIONAL HUMANITARIAN LAW. 
(a) IN GENERAL.—The President shall impose the 
sanctions described in section 102 with respect to the gov-
ernment of a foreign country if the President determines 
that such government has committed any of the acts de-
scribed in subsection (b), (c), or (d). 
(b) GENOCIDE.—Any acts committed with intent to 
destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, 
or religious group, including the following: 
(1) Killing members of the group. 
(2) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to 
members of the group. 
(3) Deliberately inflicting on the group condi-
tions of life calculated to bring about its physical de-
struction in whole or in part. 
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(4) Imposing measures intended to prevent 
births within the group. 
(5) Forcibly transferring children of the group 
to another group. 
(c) CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY.— 
(1) IN GENERAL.—Any of the following acts 
when committed as part of a widespread or system-
atic attack directed against any civilian population: 
(A) Murder. 
(B) Extermination. 
(C) Enslavement, including sexual slavery. 
(D) Deportation or forcible transfer of 
population. 
(E) Imprisonment or other severe depriva-
tion of physical liberty in violation of funda-
mental rules of international law. 
(F) Torture. 
(G) Rape, enforced prostitution, forced 
pregnancy, enforced sterilization, or any other 
form of sexual violence of comparable gravity. 
(H) Persecution against any identifiable 
group or collectivity on political, racial, na-
tional, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender, lan-
guage, social origin, age, disability, health, sex-
ual orientation, gender identity, sex characteris-
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tics, indigenous, refugee, statelessness, or mi-
gration status, or other grounds that are recog-
nized as impermissible under international law. 
(I) Enforced disappearance of persons. 
(J) The crime of apartheid. 
(K) Other inhumane acts of a similar char-
acter intentionally causing great suffering, or 
serious injury to body or to mental or physical 
health, including the excessive use of anti-riot 
materials including tear gas, rubber bullets, 
sound cannons, and other nonlethal materials to 
disperse nonviolent protests. 
(2) DEFINITIONS.—In this subsection— 
(A) the term ‘‘attack directed against any 
civilian population’’ means a course of conduct 
involving the multiple commission of acts re-
ferred to in this subsection against any civilian 
population, pursuant to or in furtherance of a 
state or organizational policy to commit such 
attack; 
(B) the term ‘‘extermination’’ includes the 
intentional infliction of conditions of life, inter 
alia the deprivation of access to food and medi-
cine, calculated to bring about the destruction 
of part of a population; 
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(C) the term ‘‘enslavement’’ includes— 
(i) slavery, which means the exercise 
of any or all of the powers attaching to the 
right of ownership over a person including 
but not limited to the exercise of powers of 
ownership over sexual autonomy or integ-
rity; 
(ii) the slave trade, which means all 
acts involved in the capture, acquisition or 
disposal of a person with intent to reduce 
the person to slavery; 
(iii) all acts involved in the acquisition 
of a slave with a view to selling or ex-
changing the slave; 
(iv) all acts of disposal by sale or ex-
change of a slave acquired with a view to 
being sold or exchanged; and 
(v) in general, every act of trade or 
transport in slaves; 
(D) the term ‘‘deportation or forcible 
transfer of population’’ means forced displace-
ment of the persons concerned by expulsion or 
other coercive acts from the area in which they 
are lawfully present, without grounds permitted 
under international law; 
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(E) the term ‘‘torture’’— 
(i) means the intentional infliction of 
severe pain or suffering, whether physical 
or mental, for such purposes as obtaining 
information or a confession, punishment, 
intimidation or coercion or for any reason 
based on discrimination of any kind; but 
(ii) does not mean pain or suffering 
arising only from, inherent in or incidental 
to, lawful sanctions; 
(F) the term ‘‘forced pregnancy’’ means 
the unlawful confinement of a person forcibly 
made pregnant, with the intent of affecting the 
ethnic composition of any population or car-
rying out other grave violations of international 
law; 
(G) the term ‘‘persecution’’ means the in-
tentional and severe deprivation of fundamental 
rights contrary to international law by reason of 
the identity of the group or collectivity; 
(H) the term ‘‘crime of apartheid’’ means 
an institutionalized regime of systematic op-
pression and domination by one racial, ethnic, 
or religious group over any other racial, ethnic, 
or religious group or groups and committed 
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with the intention of maintaining that regime; 
and 
(I) the term ‘‘enforced disappearance of 
persons’’ means the arrest, detention, or abduc-
tion of persons by, or with the authorization, 
support, or acquiescence of, a state or a polit-
ical organization, followed by a refusal to ac-
knowledge that deprivation of freedom or to 
give information on the fate or whereabouts of 
those persons, with the intention of removing 
them from the protection of the law for a pro-
longed period of time. 
(d) WAR CRIMES.—Any of the following acts against 
persons or property in an armed conflict, whether the con-
flict is of an international or internal character: 
(1) Willful killing. 
(2) Torture or inhumane treatment, including 
biological experiments. 
(3) Willfully causing great suffering, or serious 
injury to body or health. 
(4) Extensive destruction and appropriation of 
property, not justified by military necessity and car-
ried out unlawfully and wantonly. 
(5) Compelling a prisoner of war or other de-
tainee to serve in the forces of a hostile power. 
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(6) Willfully depriving a prisoner of war or 
other detainee of the rights of fair and regular trial. 
(7) Unlawful deportation or transfer or unlaw-
ful confinement. 
(8) Taking of hostages. 
(9) Intentionally directing attacks against the 
civilian population as such or against individual civil-
ians not taking direct part in hostilities. 
(10) Intentionally directing attacks against ci-
vilian objectives, that is, objectives which are not 
military objectives. 
(11) Intentionally directing attacks against per-
sonnel, installations, material, units, or vehicles in-
volved in a humanitarian assistance or peacekeeping 
mission in accordance with the Charter of the 
United Nations. 
(12) Intentionally launching an attack in the 
knowledge that such attack will cause incidental loss 
of life or injury to civilians or damage to civilian ob-
jects, or widespread, long-term, and severe damage 
to the natural environment which would be clearly 
excessive in relation to the concrete and direct over-
all military advantage anticipated. 
(13) Attacking or bombarding, by whatever 
means, towns, villages, dwellings, or buildings which 
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are undefended and which are not military objec-
tives. 
(14) Killing or wounding a combatant who, hav-
ing laid down his arms or having no longer means 
of defense, has surrendered at discretion. 
(15) Making improper use of a flag of truce, of 
the flag or of the military insignia and uniform of 
the enemy or of the United Nations, as well as of 
the distinctive emblems of the Geneva Conventions, 
resulting in death or serious personal injury. 
(16) The transfer, directly or indirectly, by an 
occupying power of parts of its own civilian popu-
lation into the territory it occupies, or the deporta-
tion or transfer of all or parts of the population of 
the occupied territory within or outside this terri-
tory. 
(17) Intentionally directing attacks against 
buildings dedicated to religion, education, art, 
science or charitable purposes, historic monuments, 
hospitals, and places where the sick and wounded 
are collected. 
(18) Subjecting persons who are in the power 
of an adverse party to physical mutilation or to med-
ical or scientific experiments of any kind which are 
neither justified by the medical, dental, or hospital 
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treatment of the person concerned nor carried out in 
his or her interest, and which cause death to or seri-
ously endanger the health of such person or persons. 
(19) Killing or wounding treacherously individ-
uals belonging to the hostile nation or army. 
(20) Declaring that no quarter will be given. 
(21) Destroying or seizing the enemy’s property 
unless such destruction or seizure be imperatively 
demanded by the necessities of war. 
(22) Declaring abolished, suspended, or inad-
missible in a court of law the rights and actions of 
the nationals of the hostile party. 
(23) Compelling the nationals of the hostile 
party to take part in the operations of war directed 
against their own country, even if they were in the 
belligerent’s service before the commencement of the 
war. 
(24) Pillaging a town or place. 
(25) Employing poison or poisoned weapons. 
(26) Employing asphyxiating, poisonous, or 
other gases, and all analogous liquids, materials, or 
devices. 
(27) Employing bullets which expand or flatten 
easily in the human body, such as bullets with a 
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hard envelope which does not entirely cover the core 
or is pierced with incisions. 
(28) Employing weapons, projectiles, and mate-
rial and methods of warfare which are of a nature 
to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering 
or which are inherently indiscriminate in violation of 
the international law of armed conflict. 
(29) Committing outrages upon personal dig-
nity, in particular humiliating and degrading treat-
ment. 
(30) Committing rape, enforced prostitution, 
forced pregnancy, as defined in subsection (c), en-
forced sterilization, or any other form of sexual vio-
lence also constituting a grave breach of the Geneva 
Conventions. 
(31) Committing slavery or the slave trade in 
all their forms. 
(32) Utilizing the presence of a civilian or other 
protected person to render certain points, areas, or 
military forces immune from military operations. 
(33) Intentionally directing attacks against 
buildings, material, medical units and transport, and 
personnel using the distinctive emblems of the Gene-
va Conventions in conformity with international law. 
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(34) Intentionally using starvation of civilians 
as a method of warfare by depriving them of objects 
indispensable to their survival. 
(35) Willfully impeding relief supplies as pro-
vided for under the Geneva Conventions. 
(36) Conscripting or enlisting children under 
the age of 18 into the national armed forces or using 
them to participate actively in hostilities. 
SEC. 102. DESCRIPTION OF SANCTIONS. 
(a) IN GENERAL.—The sanctions to be imposed with 
respect to the government of a foreign country under sec-
tion 101 are the sanctions described in subsections (b), 
(c), (d), and (e). 
(b) PROHIBITION ON SECURITY ASSISTANCE.— 
(1) IN GENERAL.—The President may not— 
(A) provide any United States security as-
sistance, intelligence, training, equipment, or 
services relating to maintenance, testing, or 
technical data, to the government of the foreign 
country or any agent or instrumentality of such 
government; or 
(B) engage in any defense cooperation with 
the government of the foreign country or any 
agent or instrumentality of such government. 
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(2) EXCEPTION.—The prohibition under this 
subsection shall not apply with respect to activities 
of the Department of Defense relating to the protec-
tion of United States diplomatic and consular posts 
or personnel or to the evacuation of United States 
citizens. 
(c) PROHIBITION ON ARMS SALES.—The President 
may not sell, transfer, deliver, license for export, authorize 
the performance of any service relating to, or otherwise 
make available any defense article, defense service, or de-
sign and construction service, as such terms are defined 
for purposes of the Arms Export Control Act (22 U.S.C. 
2751 et seq.), to the government of the foreign country 
or any agent or instrumentality of such government. 
(d) PROHIBITION ON COMMERCIAL EXPORT OF ARMS 
SALES.—The President shall prohibit the issuance of li-
censes to export defense articles, defense services, and mu-
nitions items, as such terms are defined for purposes of 
the Arms Export Control Act (22 U.S.C. 2751 et seq.), 
to the government of the foreign country or any agent or 
instrumentality of such government. 
(e) PROHIBITION
ON
LAW
ENFORCEMENT
EX-
CHANGES.— 
(1) IN GENERAL.—No Federal law enforcement 
agency, including any component of the intelligence 
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