US Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino (C) walks through a department store in St. Paul, Minnesota, June 4, 2026.
A Venezuelan migrant sits inside a cell at CECOT prison in Tecoluca, El Salvador, June 4, 2026.
The global human rights system is in peril. Under relentless pressure from US President Donald Trump, and persistently undermined by China and Russia, the rules-based international order is being crushed, threatening to take with it the architecture human rights defenders have come to rely on to advance norms and protect freedoms. To defy this trend, governments that still value human rights, alongside social movements, civil society, and international institutions, need to form a strategic alliance to push back.
To be fair, the downward spiral predated Trump’s reelection. The democratic wave that began over 50 years ago has given way to what scholars term a “democratic recession.” Democracy is now back to 1985 levels according to some metrics, with 72 percent of the world’s population now living under autocracy. Russia and China are less free today than 20 years ago. And so is the United States.
Of course, democracy is not a panacea for human rights violations; the US and other longtime democracies have their own histories of colonial crimes, racism, abusive justice systems, and wartime atrocities. More recently, authoritarian leaders have exploited public mistrust and anger to win elections and then dismantled the very institutions that brought them to power. Democratic institutions are crucial to represent the will of the people and keep power in check. It’s no surprise that whenever democracy is undermined, rights are too, as evident in recent years in India, Türkiye, the Philippines, El Salvador, and Hungary.
FIRST: The Momentum Movement’s parliamentary representative David Bedo and independent member of parliament Akos Hadhazy protest against a law that bans Pride marches in Hungary and imposes fines on organizers and attendees of such events, Budapest, June 4, 2026. © 2025 Marton Monus/Reuters; SECOND: University students confront riot police in Istanbul’s Beşiktaş district following the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, June 4, 2026. © 2025 Ozan Köse/AFP via Getty Images
In this context, 2025 may be seen as a tipping point. In just 12 months, the Trump administration has carried out a broad assault on key pillars of US democracy and the global rules-based order, which the US, despite inconsistencies, was, with other states, instrumental in helping to establish.
In short order, Trump’s second-term administration has undermined trust in the sanctity of elections, reduced government accountability, gutted food assistance and healthcare subsidies, attacked judicial independence, defied court orders, rolled back women’s rights, obstructed access to abortion care, undermined remedies for racial harm, terminated programs mandating accessibility for people with disabilities, punished free speech, stripped protections from trans and intersex people, eroded privacy, and used government power to intimidate political opponents, the media, law firms, universities, civil society, and even comedians.
Claiming a risk of “civilizational erasure” in Europe and leaning on racist tropes to cast entire populations as unwelcome in the US, the Trump administration has embraced policies and rhetoric that align with white nationalist ideology. Immigrants and asylum seekers have been subjected to inhumane conditions and degrading treatment; 32 died in US Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody in 2025, and as of mid-January 2026, an additional 4 have died. Masked immigration enforcement agents have targeted people of color, using excessive force, terrorizing communities, wrongfully arresting scores of citizens, and, most recently, unjustifiably killing two people in Minneapolis, whose deaths Human Rights Watch has documented.
The US president of course has the authority to tighten US borders and enforce stricter immigration policies. The administration is not, however, entitled to deny legal process to asylum seekers, mistreat undocumented migrants, or unlawfully discriminate. In a well-functioning democracy, no electoral mandate should supersede domestic legislation, constitutional protections, or international human rights law. Trump’s team has repeatedly bypassed these guardrails.
The violations have not stopped at the border. The Trump administration used a 1798 law to send hundreds of Venezuelan migrants to an infamous prison in El Salvador, where they were tortured and sexually abused. Its blatantly unlawful strikes on boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific extrajudicially killed more than 120 people whom Trump claims were drug traffickers.
US Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino (C) walks through a department store in St. Paul, Minnesota, June 4, 2026.
A Venezuelan migrant sits inside a cell at CECOT prison in Tecoluca, El Salvador, June 4, 2026.
After the US attacked Venezuela and apprehended its president, Nicolás Maduro, and his wife, Cilia Flores, Trump claimed the US would “run” the country and control its vast oil reserves. Despite paying lip service to human rights concerns under Maduro at the United Nations, Trump has worked with the same repressive apparatus to further US interests. Many Western allies have chosen to stay silent about these lawless moves, perhaps fearing erratic tariffs and blowback to their alliances.
Trump’s foreign policy has upended the foundations of the rules-based order that seeks to advance democracy and human rights, even if imperfectly.
Trump has boasted that he doesn’t “need international law” as a constraint, only his “own morality.” His administration has politicized the US State Department’s annual human rights report, stepped away from the global prohibition on antipersonnel landmines, voiced support for rewriting international rules on asylum, and skipped the UN’s Universal Periodic Review of the US’ human rights record.
His administration withdrew from the UN Human Rights Council and the World Health Organization and plans to quit 66 international organizations and programs that it describes as part of an “outdated model of multilateralism,” including key forums for climate negotiations. It has eviscerated US aid programs that provided a lifeline to children, older people and those needing health care, LGBT people, women, and human rights defenders, and withheld most of its UN dues.
Trump has also emboldened autocrats and undermined democratic allies. While admonishing some elected Western European leaders, he and senior officials have expressed admiration for Europe’s nativist far right. He has favored autocrats such as Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Türkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele, while continuing decades of US support to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
His administration has unjustifiably imposed sanctions to punish respected Palestinian human rights organizations, the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) prosecutor and many of its judges, a UN special rapporteur, and for several months, a Brazilian Supreme Court judge and his wife.
The institutional response in the US to Trump’s power grabs has been shockingly muted. Much of Congress, controlled by his own party, has not challenged his supercharged expansion of executive power. The leaders of the US’ most powerful technology companies have made significant donations and sought to placate the president. Some big law firms and prestigious universities have made deals rather than assert their independence, and some media organizations seem afraid to attract the president’s ire.
Has the US switched sides on the human rights playing field? While US engagement with human rights institutions has always been selective, China and Russia have long pursued an illiberal agenda. They stand much to gain from a US government that now expresses open hostility to universal rights. China and Russia remain strategic rivals of the US, but all three countries are now led by leaders who share open disdain for norms and institutions that could constrain their power.
Police detain an activist outside the State Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament, before lawmakers approved a bill that punishes online searches for information that is deemed “extremist,” in Moscow, June 4, 2026.
Together, they wield considerable economic, military, and diplomatic power. If they were to consistently act as allies of convenience to erode global rules, they could threaten the entire system. Already, a loose international network of countries such as North Korea, Iran, Venezuela, Myanmar, Cuba, and Belarus work in concert with Russia and China. These leaders share very little ideologically but align in undermining human rights and promoting a regressive international agenda. In word and in practice, the US government is now helping them in this endeavor.
FIRST: Surveillance cameras installed in Lhasa, Tibet Autonomous Region, June 4, 2026. © 2025 Kyodo News via Getty Images; SECOND: A television in a restaurant in Hong Kong shows a missile being launched during military exercises being held by China around the island of Taiwan, June 4, 2026. © 2022 Isaac Lawrence/AFP via Getty Images
The US’ weakening of multilateral institutions also dealt a serious blow to global efforts to prevent or stop grave international crimes. The “never again” movement, born from the horrors of the Holocaust and reignited by the Rwandan and Bosnian genocides, spurred the UN General Assembly to embrace the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) in 2005. Meant to guide international intervention to prevent and stop atrocities in tandem with efforts to prosecute and punish serious crimes, R2P made a real difference in places like the Central African Republic and Kenya.
Today, R2P is rarely invoked and the ICC is under siege. In addition to Trump’s far-reaching sanctions, in December 2025 a Moscow court sentenced the ICC prosecutor and eight of its judges to prison terms in absentia. Moreover, despite being ICC fugitives, in 2025, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin was welcomed by Donald Trump in Alaska, and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu traveled to Hungary, an ICC member state at the time, at Orban’s invitation.
Twenty years ago, the US government and civil society were instrumental in galvanizing a response to mass atrocities in Darfur. Sudan is burning again, but this time under Trump, with relative impunity. Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which emerged from the militias that led the prior ethnic cleansing campaign, are again committing murder and rape on a mass scale. A growing body of evidence indicates that the UAE, a longtime US ally that recently made multi-billion-dollar deals with Trump, is providing the RSF with military support.
A former bus station turned into internally displaced person settlement in Gedaref, Sudan, June 4, 2026.
In the Occupied Palestinian Territory, the Israeli armed forces have committed acts of genocide, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity, killing over 70,000 people since the October 2023 Hamas-led attacks on Israel and displacing the vast majority of Gaza’s population. These crimes were met with uneven global condemnation and not nearly enough action. Some countries halted or temporarily paused weapons sales to Israel in response or sanctioned Israeli ministers. Trump, however, continued a long-standing US policy of almost unconditional support to Israel, even as the International Court of Justice is weighing allegations of genocide and has issued binding orders under the Genocide Convention to protect Palestinians’ rights.
Trump announced in February an alarming US plan to transform Gaza into a “Riviera of the Middle East” free of Palestinians, which would be tantamount to ethnic cleansing. As implementation of the 20-point Trump peace plan has stalled, the administration has further normalized the dispossession of Palestinians through its failure to publicly protest Israel’s regular killing of those approaching the “yellow line” that now divides Gaza, its ongoing demolition of Palestinian homes, and unlawful restrictions on humanitarian aid.
FIRST: A Palestinian girl stands amidst rubble in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip, June 4, 2026. © 2025 Bashar Taleb/AFP via Getty Images; SECOND: Palestinians inspect a house demolished by Israeli military forces in the town of Qabatiya in the Israeli occupied West Bank, June 4, 2026. © 2025 Nasser Ishtayeh/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
In Ukraine, Trump’s peace efforts have consistently downplayed Russia’s responsibility for serious violations. These include indiscriminate bombing, coercing Ukrainians in occupied areas to serve in the Russian military, systematic torture of Ukrainian prisoners of war, the abduction and deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia, and the use of quadcopter drones to hunt and kill civilians. Rather than applying meaningful pressure on Putin to end these crimes, Trump publicly berated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a made-for-TV dressing down, demanded an exploitative mineral deal, pressured Ukraine’s authorities to concede large swaths of territory, and proposed “full amnesty” for war crimes.
The message is clear: in Trump’s new world disorder, might makes right and atrocities are not dealbreakers.
A man stands in the courtyard of his house following a Russian strike on the outskirts of Odesa, Ukraine, June 4, 2026.
해설진의 짧은 멘트와 함께 김하성 여자친구 존재가 처음 알려졌고 팬들은 그 장면을 두고 경기력 상승의 이유를 농담처럼 연결하기도 했어요 이때 중요한 건 노출이 목적이 아니었다는 점이에요 요즘엔 노출을 목적으로 방송이나 sns를 하는 사람들이 많잖아요. 지난 시즌 미 프로야구 메이저리그mlb에서 김하성29 입지는 남달랐다. 김하성 포지션 김하성의 포지션은 2루수 및 유격수입니다. 김하성 선수 여자친구분 예전에 중계에 잡혀다길래 검색해.
프로야구 넥센 히어로즈의 4번 타자 김하성22이 2년 연속 20홈런을 달성했다, 김하성은 아직 결혼은 하지 않은 미혼인데 종종 친누나가 응원을 가던지 인스타그램의 사진으로 인해 여자친구로 오해를 받기도 하였네요. 재산 1조 그 테일러 스위프트 맞습니다 여솔 goat 물론 찌라시였고 지금 nfl 선수랑 열애중이라는데 김하성이 진짜 월클이구나 생각했던 열애설. 그는 이날 4번 타자이자 유격수로 경기에 출전했으며, 팀이 43으로 앞서가던 7회말에 결정적인 투런 홈런을 쳤다.김하성 선수의 앞으로 전망은 전반적으로 매우 긍정적입니다.. 메이저리그에서 이미 수비력은 최상급, 공격에서도 출루 능력과 주루 플레이가 검증되어 있어 유틸리티 내야수로서 가치가 높습니다..
| Com › 55김하성 여자친구 응원석 공개. | 김하성, 한국 프로야구의 뛰어난 타자가 11일 서울에 위치한 고척 스카이돔에서 열린 2017년 타이어뱅크 kbo리그의 두산 베어스와의 경기에서 중요한 역할을 했다. | 야구선수 김하성 선수가 tvn 유퀴즈 에 출연하여 김하성 선수 프로필에 대한 관심이 뜨겁습니다. | 팀의 공수 핵심으로 자리 잡은 김하성의 입지가 곳곳에서 느껴졌다고 하는데요. |
|---|---|---|---|
| 김하성은 아직 결혼은 하지 않은 미혼인데 종종 친누나가 응원을 가던지 인스타그램의 사진으로 인해 여자친구로 오해를 받기도 하였네요. | 1월에는 19년생 지적장애 판정을 받은 조○우 여자 친. | 구와 18년생 지적장애 양○진 여자 친구를 만났습니 김하성 김현리. | Kr › news › sport김하성, 응원 온 여자친구 흐뭇하게 한 7회말 투런포. |
| La에 지인들이 계신다고 대응했지만 김태균은 여자친구 이름이 지인이냐라고 짓궂게 물었고, 한해는 그 암호를 알아채셨군요. | 한국인 선수 최초로 mlb 골드 글러브gold glove 유틸리티utility 부문 수상자에 이름을 올렸다. | La에 지인들이 계신다고 대응했지만 김태균은 여자친구 이름이 지인이냐라고 짓궂게 물었고, 한해는 그 암호를 알아채셨군요. | 구와 18년생 지적장애 양○진 여자 친구를 만났습니 김하성 김현리. |
과거에 경기 중 중계카메라에 포착된 여성의 모습.. 특히 골드글러브 수상 경력은 fa 시장에서 큰 강점으로 작용합니다..
재산 1조 그 테일러 스위프트 맞습니다 여솔 goat 물론 찌라시였고 지금 nfl 선수랑 열애중이라는데 김하성이 진짜 월클이구나 생각했던 열애설. 황준서는 5㎏정도 쪘다라며 이지풍 코치님과 같이 했다. 김하성 포지션 김하성의 포지션은 2루수 및 유격수입니다, 딱히 힘들지는 않았다고 미소를 지었다. 아직까지 여자친구 열애설은 전해지지 않고 있네요.
12월 12일 나 혼자 산다에 출연한 김하성이 시그니엘 집을 공개했는데요. 출국에 앞서 여성팬과 셀카 찍는 김하성, 채정안의 몸매 댄스 커버image size584x330 산타클로스 위키백과, 우리 모두의 백과사전image size960x1343 기획영상 제작진은 몰랐던 러브 스토리, 이필모♥서수연 비하인드image size584x330, 해설진의 짧은 멘트와 함께 김하성 여자친구 존재가 처음 알려졌고 팬들은 그 장면을 두고 경기력 상승의 이유를 농담처럼 연결하기도 했어요 이때 중요한 건 노출이 목적이 아니었다는 점이에요 요즘엔 노출을 목적으로 방송이나 sns를 하는 사람들이 많잖아요.
김하성 여자친구 최신 정보 7가지 총정리. 속보 메이저리거 김하성, 의외의 여배우 여자친구 공개되자, 2024년 08월 19일 jkqqs 댓글 남기기.
이게 왜 실화_ 미리보기 7 무료보기 Facebook 속보 메이저리거 김하성, 의외의 여배우 여자친구 공개되자 모두 깜짝 놀랐다 광고폰 떨어뜨릴 일 없음. 김하성, 한국 프로야구의 뛰어난 타자가 11일 서울에 위치한 고척 스카이돔에서 열린 2017년 타이어뱅크 kbo리그의 두산 베어스와의 경기에서 중요한 역할을 했다. 과거에 경기 중 중계카메라에 포착된 여성의 모습. 12월 12일 나 혼자 산다에 출연한 김하성이 시그니엘 집을 공개했는데요. 2024년 08월 19일 jkqqs 댓글 남기기. 유하 디시
윤수빈 남편 디시 출국에 앞서 여성팬과 셀카 찍는 김하성. 구와 18년생 지적장애 양○진 여자 친구를 만났습니 김하성 김현리. 시그니엘 집 가격, 차, 여자친구, 나혼산 총정리 김하성 연봉이 700억까지 거론되면서 화제입니다. 김하성은 아직 결혼은 하지 않은 미혼인데 종종 친누나가 응원을 가던지 인스타그램의 사진으로 인해 여자친구로 오해를 받기도 하였네요. 김하성 포지션 김하성의 포지션은 2루수 및 유격수입니다. 윤드로저 진두부
윤혜정 가슴 딱히 힘들지는 않았다고 미소를 지었다. 2021년 7월 1일 네이버연합뉴스 샌디에이고 언론의 극찬 김하성. 김하성 고향 김하성의 고향은 경기도 부천시입니다. Day ago 여자친구 만났는데 맨다리로 나온줄알고 엄청 뭐라고 했거든요. 메이저리그는 타고난 신체와 재능을 합친 선수들로 가득합니다. 이맹둥 라이브
음방갤 미니 김하성 고향 김하성의 고향은 경기도 부천시입니다. 김하성은 아직 결혼은 하지 않은 미혼인데 종종 친누나가 응원을 가던지 인스타그램의 사진으로 인해 여자친구로 오해를 받기도 하였네요. 메이저리그 계약 샌디에이고 파드리스 김하성 선수 연봉 이적료 등번호 인스타 여친 여자친구 결혼 mlb 별명. 김하성은 11일 서울 고척 스카이돔에서 열린 2017 타이어뱅크 kbo리그. 2021년 7월 1일 네이버연합뉴스 샌디에이고 언론의 극찬 김하성.
은빛자존심 porn 김하성은 11일 서울 고척 스카이돔에서 열린 2017 타이어뱅크 kbo리그. 현재 김하성은 결혼하지 않은 상태이며, 그의 여자친구에 대한 공식적인 정보는 거의 없는 실정입니다. 김하성 선수의 앞으로 전망은 전반적으로 매우 긍정적입니다. 김하성 프로필 키, 나이, 연봉, 야구, 골든글러브, 소속팀, 결혼 등 김하성 나이 김하성은 1995년 10월 17일 출생하여, 현재 나이는 28살입니다. 출국에 앞서 여성팬과 셀카 찍는 김하성.
Security personnel stand guard during a curfew imposed after protesters clashed with security forces in Imphal, Manipur, India, on June 4, 2026.
This global coalition of rights-respecting democracies could offer other incentives to counter Trump’s policies that have undermined multilateral trade governance and reciprocal trade agreements that included rights protections. Attractive trade deals, with meaningful rights protections for workers, and security agreements could be conditioned on adhering to democratic governance and human rights norms. Democracy already comes with benefits. While autocracies have generally fostered conflict, economic stagnation, or kleptocracy, as evidenced in multiple academic studies, including the work of the Nobel Prize-winning economist Daron Acemoglu, democratic institutions reliably yield economic growth.
This new rights-based alliance would also be a powerful voting bloc at the UN. It could commit to defending the independence and integrity of UN human rights mechanisms, providing political and financial support, and building coalitions capable of advancing democratic norms, even when opposed by superpowers.
Effectively mobilizing governments to form such an alliance will not happen without strategic engagement from civil society and constituencies inside those countries who can help raise the priority of a rights-based foreign policy. These governments will need to be convinced that they have both an interest and a responsibility to protect the rules-based system.
Projects of this nature are bubbling up. Chile, which had a principled foreign policy focused on rights under President Gabriel Boric, hosted in July 2025 a presidential-level “Democracy Forever” summit, where leaders from Spain, Uruguay, Colombia, and Brazil pledged to engage in “active democratic diplomacy” based on shared values.
The Hague Group, led by Malaysia, South Africa, and Colombia, formed in January 2025 in “defense of international law” and in solidarity with Palestinians. Over 70 countries from all regions signed a joint statement defending multilateralism at the UN. Earlier, in 2017, former Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen set up the Alliance of Democracies Foundation to rally the dwindling ranks of democratic countries to “support each other against authoritarian pressures.”
Whatever its precise contours, an alliance of rights-respecting democracies would offer a hopeful counterpoint to the authoritarian trope of China’s and Russia’s leaders standing alongside North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, observing military hardware in a parade in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in September. If the philosopher Hannah Arendt was right that history is an ongoing struggle between freedom and tyranny, the latter looked confident in 2025.
Yet, even in the worst of times, the idea of freedom and human rights is enduring. People power remains an engine for change. In the US, “No Kings” marches have drawn millions, protesters in Chicago, Minneapolis, Los Angeles, and around the country have stood up against the deployment of the National Guard and ICE abuses, and students are still organizing for Palestine on university campuses despite draconian crackdowns and visa revocations.
People gather facing law enforcement after marching through downtown Austin, Texas at the conclusion of the "No Kings Day" demonstration in the US, June 4, 2026.
Buoyed by popular resistance, South Korean parliamentarians impeached their president to prevent him from grabbing power through martial law. Grassroots aid efforts by Sudan’s emergency response rooms, Hong Kong’s fire relief, Sri Lanka’s cyclone relief community kitchens, and Ukrainian mutual aid and solidarity collectives represent the best of this trend.
In 2025, Gen Z protests against corruption, inadequate public services, and poor governance in Nepal, Indonesia, and Morocco brought to the forefront the need for governments to listen to their youth and tackle corruption and inequality. But as the difficulties of restoring rights in Bangladesh after years under an authoritarian government illustrates, gains won through public mobilization can easily be lost unless democratic participation and free expression remain unassailable.
People take part in a youth-led protest against corruption and calling for education and healthcare reforms, in Rabat, Morocco, June 4, 2026.
Demonstrators outside Nepal's Parliament during a protest in Kathmandu condemning social media prohibitions and corruption by the government, June 4, 2026.
In this more hostile world, civil society is more critical than ever. It’s also increasingly endangered, particularly in an environment where funding is scarce. In 2025, Human Rights Watch was labeled “undesirable” and banned from operating in Russia. For partners in Egypt, Hong Kong, and India, these tactics are all too familiar. Restrictions on civil society and protest have become more commonplace in Europe, including the UK and France. And now, for the first time, many worry about risks associated with their operational presence in the US, where the Open Society Foundations, a major donor, have already been threatened, and the administration is preparing a list of “domestic terrorists” under overbroad guidance that could be interpreted to include the work of many progressive groups.
Breaking the authoritarian wave and standing up for human rights is a generational challenge. In 2026, it will play out most acutely in the US, with far-reaching consequences for the rest of the world. Fighting back will require a determined, strategic, and coordinated reaction from voters, civil society, multilateral institutions, and rights-respecting governments around the globe.
김하성 키 김하성의 키는 179cm입니다., Human Rights Watch’s 36th annual review of human rights practices and trends around the globe, reviews developments in more than 100 countries.