DAWN’s mission is to reshape U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) by focusing on human rights, democracy, and accountability across four key strategic pillars:
1. Rigorous Research & Policy Analysis: DAWN challenges conventional foreign policy narratives by producing expert memos and reports that highlight the long-term costs of supporting repressive regimes and seek to hold perpetrators to account.
2. Targeted Advocacy & Legislative Engagement: DAWN directs efforts toward U.S. policymakers to enforce existing laws—such as the Leahy Law—that prohibit military aid to units committed to gross human rights violations. Our flagship Leahy Law Accountability Project aims to ensure transparency and accountability in military aid, with a specific focus on high-impact regions like Israel, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia.
3. Strategic Litigation: DAWN uses litigation strategically to force changes to U.S. policy, including challenging the sanctions against the International Criminal Court, which have been used against judges, prosecutors, UN experts, and human rights defenders, as well as the failure to implement the Leahy Law and the abuses of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
4. Media Outreach & Public Convenings: DAWN elevates the voices of activists and experts through high-level summits and media campaigns to build public and political consensus for a rights-centered foreign policy and develop new solutions to long-standing regional problems.
Please visit our website at www.DawnMena.org for more information and to sign up for our newsletter.
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