Will Human Rights Survive a Trumpian World?

Authoritarian Advances Threaten Rules-Based Order

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

퍼넬 휘태커 미국의 복서, 1984 로스앤젤레스 올림픽 라이트급 금메달리스트, 라이트급슈퍼. 로버트 휘태커 robert whittaker 우남위키. Watch short videos about king of kings seong ho jang from people around the world. Com › post › ugkx_yknpswje1grabk4post from 돌섬 youtube.

휘태커 26승 8패는 2017년 ufc 미들급 잠정 챔피언에서 정식 챔피언으로 승격했다.. 9㎏ 챔피언 더 리퍼 로버트 휘태커 34호주가 타이틀 탈환을 위한 여정을 본격적으로 시작한다.. 분류 미국 남배우 미국의 영화배우 미국의 드라마 배우 미국의 영화감독 1961년 출생 할리우드 명예의 거리 입성자 서던 캘리포니아 대학교 출신 뉴욕 대학교 출신 롱뷰 텍사스 출신 인물 아프리카계 미국인 아카데미 남우주연상 수상자 칸 영화제 남우주연상 수상자.. 2m followers, 2,005 following, 2,444 posts robert whittaker @robwhittakermma on instagram australia’s 1st ufc champ 🇦🇺🇳🇿🇼🇸 @rivalsportsmanagement @graciejiujitsusmeatongrange @mmarcadepodcast @unibetaustralia @musashinutrition @stingsports..

메이플 키우기 광고

In 1988, whitaker appeared in the film bloodsport and had his first lead role starring as jazz alto saxophonist charlie bird parker in clint eastwood s bird. 기사 2 비판하는 측에서는 특히 10대 닥터의 복사본이나 다름없다며 까내리기도 했다, 2m followers, 2,005 following, 2,444 posts see instagram photos and videos from robert whittaker @robwhittakermma, Chambers wrote and edited for the magazine new masses and was an editor for the daily worker newspaper from 1927 to 1929.

메이플 야설

前 ufc 제 8대 미들급 챔피언이었다. Watch short videos about king of kings seong ho jang from people around the world. With forest whitaker, henry silva, john tormey, cliff gorman. 휘태커는 9일한국시간 미국 라스베이거스 티모바일 아레나에서 열린 ufc 213 메인이벤트에서 로메로와 난타전을 벌인 끝에 304847,4847,4847 판정.

그 예로 로버트 휘태커 가 함자트 치마예프 에게 넥 크랭크에 걸리고 잇몸과 아랫니 3개가 통째로 떨어져 나가는 심각한 부상을 입은 적이 있다, 전적 20전 16승 4패 7ko, 5서브미션 2016년 7월 업뎃. International ring fight arena, fight club rush, brave cf 3개의 중소단체에서 강력한 레슬링과 그래플링으로 다른 선수들을 모두 피니쉬시키며 무패. 캐나다 국적의 전 웰터급 미들급 종합격투기 선수. Whittaker, 1997년 6월 6일는 잉글랜드의 권투 선수이다.

모두가 구원받지 못하는 하렘

Ufc 미들급 랭킹 5위 휘태커는 오는 27일 이하 한국시간 아랍에미리트 uae 아부다비 야스섬 에티하드 아레나에서 열리는 ‘ufc 파이트 나이트 휘태커 vs 더 리더’ 메인 이벤트에서 13위 ‘rdr. 휘태커 위키백과, 우리 모두의 백과사전. 2m followers, 2,005 following, 2,444 posts robert whittaker @robwhittakermma on instagram australia’s 1st ufc champ 🇦🇺🇳🇿🇼🇸 @rivalsportsmanagement @graciejiujitsusmeatongrange @mmarcadepodcast @unibetaustralia @musashinutrition @stingsports. 2m followers, 2,005 following, 2,444 posts see instagram photos and videos from robert whittaker @robwhittakermma. 특징 주인공 디컨 세인트 존 의 아내. 휘태커 역시 아데산야의 경기에 감탄을 표하면서도, 약점을 보았다며 자신감을 표출하고 있다.

모유사회 디시 Get the latest news, live stats and mma fight highlights. 하지만 한 번의 방어전도 하지 못하고 2019년 이스라엘 아데산야에게 타이틀을 뺏겼다. 1988년 제41회 칸 영화제 남우주연상 1989년 센트조어디어워즈 외국남자배우상 1993년 제18회 토론토국제영화제 fipresci상 1996년 블록버스터엔터테이너어워즈 드라마부문 남자조연배우상 2002년 네믹비전어워즈 드라마부문 남자배우상 2003년 블랙릴어워드 tv미니시리즈부문 남우주연상 2006년 아프리카. 하지만 한 번의 방어전도 하지 못하고 2019년 이스라엘 아데산야에게 타이틀을 뺏겼다. 전적 20전 16승 4패 7ko, 5서브미션 2016년 7월 업뎃. 모야모 코스프레

메이플 키우기 dc 휘태커 26승8패는 지난해 10월 같은 장소서 열린 ufc 308에서 랭킹 3위 함자트 치마예프 상대로 페이스 크랭크에 얼굴이 조여지며 치아 3개가 뒤로 젖혀지는 부상을 당했다. 분류 미국 남배우 미국의 영화배우 미국의 드라마 배우 미국의 영화감독 1961년 출생 할리우드 명예의 거리 입성자 서던 캘리포니아 대학교 출신 뉴욕 대학교 출신 롱뷰 텍사스 출신 인물 아프리카계 미국인 아카데미 남우주연상 수상자 칸 영화제 남우주연상 수상자. 당시 랭킹 6위였던 김동현 을 적극적으로 요구했으나 김동현은 콜비 코빙턴 과. Org › wiki › 로버트_휘태커로버트 휘태커 격투기 선수 위키백과, 우리 모두의 백과사전. 휘태커가 호주 출신이고, 아데산야가 뉴질랜드 국적인 만큼 경기는 호주에서 치러질 가능성이 매우 높다. 메이플키우기 클뜯

메이플 키우기 어빌리티 종결 휘태커가 호주 출신이고, 아데산야가 뉴질랜드 국적인 만큼 경기는 호주에서 치러질 가능성이 매우 높다. In 1988, whitaker appeared in the film bloodsport and had his first lead role starring as jazz alto saxophonist charlie bird parker in clint eastwood s bird. Org › wiki › forest_whitakerforest whitaker wikipedia. 그중에서도 가장 많은 주목을 받는 선수는 바로 로버트 휘태커 입니다. 로버트 휘태커 robert whittaker 우남위키. 무료축구중계

모나미 린 전적 주요 승 유라이어 홀, 알레시오. 아데산야나 휘태커전이 그 대표적인 예시다. 하지만 한 번의 방어전도 하지 못하고 2019년 이스라엘 아데산야에게 타이틀을 뺏겼다. 휘태커는 9일한국시간 미국 라스베이거스 티모바일 아레나에서 열린 ufc 213 메인이벤트에서 로메로와 난타전을 벌인 끝에 304847,4847,4847 판정. Get the latest news, live stats and mma fight highlights.

모모 랜드 낸시 트위터 휘태커 vs 로메로 1 이때 휘태커는 엄청났었지. 9㎏ 챔피언 로버트 휘태커호주가 마지막 타이틀 레이스에 나선다. 작중 행적 과거 디컨과는 도로에서 자동차. 233 likes, 15 comments runsoeun on 안녕하세요 런소은입니다 저 초콜릿 러버인데요﫣 다이어트하면서 초콜릿 참기 힘들잖아요凉 특히나 대자연의 날쯔음에 달달한거 엄청 땡기는데 제가 진짜 애정하는 초콜릿 추천드려요來 ️⃣광고 아니구요 ️내돈내산 입니다 휘태커스코코아러버컬렉션92%. 9㎏ 챔피언 로버트 휘태커호주가 마지막 타이틀 레이스에 나선다.

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.

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.