Law Library of Congress Report on Regulation of Foreign Involvement in Elections

The Law Library of Congress in Washington recently published a comparative law report on the Regulation of Foreign Involvement in Elections (written in August 2019):

"This report by the foreign law research staff of the Law Library of Congress’s Global Legal Research Directorate includes surveys of thirteen major democratic foreign jurisdictions on laws and policies addressing foreign involvement in elections. "

"Reports of foreign interference in recent elections in the United States and elsewhere have prompted responses in several countries. For example, Australia enacted a new law in 2018 imposing limits on foreign donations to parties and candidates, and also prohibited other political actors from using foreign donations to fund political expenditures. Australia also adopted a Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme, which requires persons undertaking political activities for foreign principals to meet registration and disclosure requirements. Australia also legislated new criminal offenses involving foreign interference, including the offense of 'intentional foreign interference,' which provides for imprisonment for up to 20 years for covert or deceptive conduct on behalf of a foreign principal intended to influence a political or governmental process."   

"Canada also enacted a new law in 2018. The Elections Modernization Act provides that only Canadian citizens or permanent residents can contribute to parties or candidates, and that third parties may not use funds for a partisan purpose during a pre-election period if the source of the funds is a foreign entity. The new law creates offenses prohibiting foreign actors from unduly influencing an election and Canadians from colluding with foreign actors for this purpose."

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"Most of the other countries surveyed in this report similarly have laws prohibiting foreign donations. Donations typically are defined broadly to include all forms of support having monetary value, including provision of services." 

The Law Library of Congress is the world’s largest law library, with a collection of over 2 and a half million volumes from all ages of history and virtually every jurisdiction in the world.

Over the years, it has published dozens of comparative law reports which are a treasure trove for legal research on a huge variety of issues.