The United States is committed to building foreign partner capacity to, among other things, (1) encourage effective and mutually beneficial relations to support international peace and security efforts and (2) enable partner countries to use their own resources with maximum effectiveness. Rule of law assistance is an important component of U.S. efforts to build foreign partner capacity, and according to officials, includes defense institution-building and foreign partner training focused on military justice, human rights, anticorruption, and professionalization of the military. Officials noted that countries with an established rule of law system have more stability and fewer people trying to flee to other countries or turning to terrorism. DOD integrates rule of law concepts into various types of training and assistance carried out under Title 10 and Title 22 of the United States Code. Title 10 covers authorities for the armed forces, focusing primarily on DOD, whereas Title 22 covers authorities regarding foreign relations, which primarily fall under State. According to officials, most of this assistance is carried out through military-to-military events. DOD schools, such as the U.S. Army War College, may also cover some rule of law concepts as part of other training. (See app. II for examples of rule of law assistance that various DOD entities implement.) DIILS is located in Newport, Rhode Island; its predecessor, the International Training Detachment of the Naval Justice School, was created in 1992 to provide foreign militaries with training on the rule of law, including human rights and the law of armed conflict, such as rules for the use of force. In response to DOD and State initiatives in the past decade, DIILS has expanded its curriculum to include rule of law issues related to peacekeeping and combating terrorism. Since 1992, DIILS’s primary focus has been to provide rule of law assistance. According to officials, DIILS has reached over 30,000 participants in over 140 countries since it was created. DIILS is funded entirely through reimbursements from DOD and State. Demand for DIILS assistance may change from year to year. For fiscal years 2013 through 2016, DOD and State used five primary funding accounts to fund DIILS’s rule of law assistance each year, with various other accounts used less consistently. During this period, DIILS disbursed about $6.2 million a year, on average, for rule of law events, $24.6 million in total. Figure 1 shows the funding sources and the proportion of DIILS disbursements attributed to each source for fiscal years 2013 through 2016. The funding sources for DIILS assistance are described below, in order of the amount of total disbursements for fiscal years 2013 through 2016, from largest to smallest. 1. International Military Education and Training (IMET) funds account for 48 percent, $11.9 million, of DIILS disbursements for fiscal years 2013 through 2016 and include DIILS operating expenses. IMET funds are appropriated to the President. State prioritizes assistance and develops policy guidance, while DOD has the primary responsibility for implementing IMET activities. Primarily through IMET, DIILS currently provides 17 mobile and 8 resident courses on topics ranging from military justice and peacekeeping operations to legal aspects of combating corruption and terrorism. Most mobile courses are taught within a week, while resident courses are generally 3 weeks. 2. Operation and Maintenance Defense-Wide funds account for 24 percent, $5.9 million, of DIILS disbursements for fiscal years 2013 through 2016 and cover overhead and planning requirements for DIILS to develop and implement long-term global strategies for rule of law security cooperation, including defense institution-building assistance. DOD’s Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy is responsible for setting priorities and distributing these funds. For example, DIILS has completed legal assessments in Armenia, Indonesia, and Ukraine; supported military legislative reform in Botswana; and conducted defense institution-building scoping visits in Cambodia, Guatemala, and Thailand, among other efforts. 3. Global Train and Equip Program funds account for about 11 percent, $2.6 million, of DIILS disbursements for fiscal years 2013 through 2016. DOD’s Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict is responsible for policy guidance and oversight of the Global Train and Equip Program, with State concurrence. These funds provide military equipment, supplies, and training to build the capacity of foreign military forces to conduct counterterrorism operations, among other things. The legislation authorizing these activities includes a provision requiring each project to include elements that promote human rights and respect for civilian authority within that country, a requirement that DOD has designated DIILS to fulfill. According to DIILS, it meets this requirement in a 2-day, in-country seminar. 4. Peacekeeping Operations funds account for about 9 percent, $2.2 million, of DIILS disbursements for fiscal years 2013 through 2016 and are appropriated to State, and managed by its Bureau of Political- Military Affairs, for use in regional security peacekeeping operations and other programs carried out to further U.S. national security interests. According to DOD, these funds can be transferred to DOD to support specific requirements identified by a U.S. embassy or geographic combatant command. Peacekeeping Operations funding provided to DIILS since fiscal year 2013 has primarily focused on building the legal capacity of magistrates in the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. 5. Foreign Military Financing funds account for 4 percent, $1.0 million, of DIILS disbursements for fiscal years 2013 through 2016. Foreign Military Financing funds are appropriated to the President. State determines policy priorities for the use of the account, while DOD’s DSCA has overall responsibility for implementing Foreign Military Financing funded programs. Foreign Military Financing funds allow for the United States to sell defense articles and services to foreign countries and international organizations if doing so will strengthen the security of the United States and promote world peace. DIILS is one DOD school, among others, that uses these funds to provide training, such as resident and mobile courses, as well as defense institution-building efforts. Since fiscal year 2013, these funds have been used in Belize, Colombia, Ghana, Mexico, and Ukraine, among others. 6. Other sources account for 4 percent, $0.9 million, of DIILS disbursements for fiscal years 2013 through 2016 and include the Combating Terrorism Fellowship Program and the Global Security Contingency Fund, among others. The purpose of the Combating Terrorism Fellowship Program is to provide foreign partners’ mid- and senior-level defense and security officials with operational and strategic-level education on combating terrorism while reinforcing partner-nation capabilities. The Global Security Contingency Fund aims to address key security challenges in partner countries in the near- to midterm. DIILS provides three types of rule of law assistance, each with a different DOD or State entity requesting the assistance. The three assistance types are core rule of law training, defense institution-building, and statutorily required human rights training. For fiscal years 2013 through 2016, DIILS conducted over 500 rule of law events in almost 100 countries, with U.S. Africa Command followed by U.S. European Command as the U.S. geographic combatant commands holding the most DIILS events. DIILS assesses the quality of its assistance in various ways, including implementing student surveys, conducting pre- and post- course tests, and instituting real-time classroom assessments of participants’ comprehension. In some cases, DIILS course facilitators also produce after action reports that may include observations of the assistance provided and challenges, if any, in providing the assistance. Our interviews with foreign partner recipients of DIILS assistance and U.S. officials working to provide it generally reflected positive views about the quality of DIILS’s services. DIILS assistance includes three types of rule of law assistance, each with different DOD or State entities generating requests. A summary of these assistance types, along with the primary funding source of each, is shown in table 1. Figure 2 illustrates the various DOD and State entities involved in requesting and funding the different types of DIILS assistance. For fiscal years 2013 through 2016, DIILS provided over 500 training and institution-building events to about 100 countries; that includes over 200 core rule of law events, about 200 defense institution-building events, and about 100 statutorily required human rights training events. Of DOD’s six geographic combatant commands, U.S. Africa Command had the greatest number of DIILS events, with 164, followed by U.S. European Command, with 101. Figure 3 further illustrates the comparison in number of DIILS events by geographic location. Figure 4 breaks out the DIILS assistance within each geographic combatant command and DIILS headquarters by assistance type for fiscal years 2013 through 2016. This figure shows that U.S. Africa Command and U.S. Pacific Command have held the most defense institution-building assistance events, while U.S. Africa Command and U.S. European Command have held the most statutorily required human rights training events. In addition, the figure shows that DIILS’s school in Newport, Rhode Island, holds the most core rule of law training events. DIILS officials provided examples of several steps that they take to assess the quality of DIILS’s assistance. These actions generally aligned with leading practices for assessing the quality of training, based on the information officials provided. These include using multiple assessment methods, such as the following types of activities: Student surveys, pre- and post-course tests, and instructor feedback.