The U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) works to keep Americans safe at home by countering international crime, illegal drugs, and instability abroad. INL helps countries deliver justice and fairness by strengthening their police, courts, and corrections systems. These efforts reduce the amount of crime and illegal drugs reaching U.S. shores.
Challenges: The Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal faces a number of significant challenges to its justice system. Nepal continues to rebuild after a devastating 2015 earthquake, and though Nepal has successfully transitioned into a full-fledged constitutional federal republic grounded in a constitution promulgated in 2015, the country’s justice system remains weak.
Goals: The United States seeks to build the capacity of Nepal’s justice and law enforcement institutions to face these challenges, contribute to regional and global security, and provide justice services to its citizens. The INL objective in Nepal is to support a sustainable, effective, and community-focused justice sector and promote human rights and rule of law through technical assistance, training, infrastructure development, and limited equipment donations. Substantively, the INL program is focused on developing institutionalized training programs; organizational reform and development; promoting human rights and democratic policing; enhancing participation by women and marginalized groups; improving cooperation across the justice sector; and improving specialized investigative, prosecutorial, and judicial capacity in areas such as combatting human trafficking and cybercrime.
Accomplishments:
- INL’s law enforcement program, implemented by the Department of Justice’s International Criminal Investigation Training Assistance Program (ICITAP), has worked with the Nepal Police (NP) and Armed Police Force (APF) to build their training and institutional capacity since 2006. The program has built investigative capacity to combat transnational crime through coordinated training with prosecutors and other government agencies, as well as through case-based mentoring. Additionally, the program continues to support the Nepal Police development through the implementation of a comprehensive job task analysis for criminal investigators, and the development of leadership training at the Nepal Police Academy. In 2019, support was initiated for the development of provincial police agencies nationwide, and a restructuring of the Nepal Police at the federal level. Future assistance will include IT connectivity between the Nepal Police and Provincial Police, and assistance bringing Nepal’s forensic capabilities up to international standards. In 2020, the program will partner with the Armed Police Force.
- The INL-funded justice sector program implemented by the Department of Justice’s Office of Overseas Prosecutorial Development Assistance and Training Program (OPDAT) has delivered expertise on criminal law and procedure to hundreds of Nepali government officials, jurists, defense attorneys, academics, and law students. OPDAT promotes long-term stability and criminal justice reform in Nepal by promoting the rule of law through events such as annual local and international Moot Court Competitions for Nepali law students, and building capacity to combat transnational crime and corruption with frequent concentrated trainings on effective methods to combat narcotics, human, and wildlife trafficking, as well as cyber and financial crimes.
- INL’s International Police Peacekeeping Operations Support (IPPOS) program has a robust partnership with Nepal that has progressed from pre-deployment training to a focus on unit command and leadership, trainer development, and mentoring to bolster Nepal’s efforts to continually deploy high-performing police to UN peacekeeping missions. The IPPOS program has trained over 2,200 police from both the Nepal Police and Armed Police Force who have deployed to UN peacekeeping missions in Liberia, Haiti, Sudan, and South Sudan.