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.
블라 셀소 이용해서소개글은 사실상 미끼상품 비슷 단돈 5천원으로 소개팅ㅎㅎ 100번도 쌉가눙이야. 블라인드 댓글 폭발한 29기 영수 자기소개, 영식 대학 같지만 완전 다른 이유나는솔로 직업 나이 나는솔. 29기 영수님 소개팅 100번 중 한 50번은 블라 셀소인가. 영수 블라 셀소 후기글에 짠돌이라더니 한우전문점에서 셋이 삼겹살 먹고 74000원 정숙 순자 대가리 텅텅 광고 베베핀 빅 플레이 사운드북_아기상어 서점 근데 솔직히 29기 옥순은 왜 시집 못갔을까.
20 3,181 6 고기 먹으면서 블라인드 난리난다고 하는 거 보니까ㅋㅋㅋㅋ 이 글도 보려나ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ영수 안녕.. 피식대학 정재형님이 예전에 84이즈백에서 판교 대기업 개발자로 나왔었잖아요.. 29기 영수님 소개팅 100번 중 한 50번은 블라 셀소인가..자신의 반려자를 솔로나라에서 찾을수 있을지 궁금해지네요. 어허 어허 27여 셀소해봅니다🙋🏼♀ 블릿 셀소 주간베스트. 3,225 8 헬스장 근처도 안가본것 같은몸+등기도 안쳐봤는데 헬스와 친해지겠다 재개발 투자하겠다는 말만으로 자기보다 키큰 정숙 꼬셔버리고, 그리고 광수의 뒷담화를 쿨하게 용서하면서 대인배 면모까지 보일 수 있다. 블라인드 im솔로 29영수 셀소글 어디서봄. 저희 엄마 쓰는거보고 너무 효과 좋아서 저도 월급털어 구매 read more.
| 나는솔로 29기 영숙 영식 사이다 발언 언급한 시청자 의견 근황 나는솔로 나는솔로29기 나는솔로29기영식 나는솔로29기영숙 나솔29기영식. | 29기 영수의 이야기는 그럼 이번주 나는솔로 29기 본방 보고 이어가도록 하겠습니다. | 나솔 29기 영수가 블라인드에 썼던 글이 난리난 이유 세상에. |
|---|---|---|
| Im솔로 추천 글 나는솔로 29기 이번주 한줄평 너 돈벌고 다니담서. | 영수 95년생 sk이노베이션영호 양산 경찰공무원 영식 효성티앤씨영철 자영업광수 강남 개업 한의사상철. | 29기 상철 185cm 저 피지컬 외모 헌포나 감성주점에서 연락처나 한잔하자고 하면 여성분들. |
| 최근에 블라인드앱에서 29기 영수와 소개팅을 했다는 전 썸녀가 등장했는데요, 사실 100번이나 소개팅을 했으면 인터넷에 썰이 안 올라올 수가 없죠. | Im솔로 추천 글 29기 옥순 대존예 응원하는커플 영수 괜찮은 남자라 ㄹㅇ 미안함 29기 영철♥︎정숙 의문점 나는솔로 보는 사람들 다들 화가 많어. | 블라인드 댓글 폭발한 29기 영수 자기소개, 영식 대학 같지만 완전 다른 이유나는솔로 직업 나이 나는솔. |
| 공식 apple 브랜드관에서 쿠팡 특가로 지금 만나보세요. | 흥미돋블라인드에 자기소개글 올렸던 29기 영수. | Com › lalabandlala › 22408793395629기 영수 블라 셀소남이였다고. |
| 나는솔로 29기 영수 과거 소개팅녀 8명 대거폭로. | 한 번에 싹 정리하고 싶은 분들을 위해 구성했으니, 집중해서 읽어주세요 😊. | 나는솔로 29기 영수 셀소셀프소개글 블라인드 화제. |
29기 상철 185cm 저 피지컬 외모 헌포나 감성주점에서 연락처나 한잔하자고 하면 여성분들, Im솔로 추천 글 나는솔로 29기 이번주 한줄평 너 돈벌고 다니담서. 3개 국어 자부심은 마음 속으로만 하자. 29기 영수의 이야기는 그럼 이번주 나는솔로 29기 본방 보고 이어가도록 하겠습니다, 연상연하특집 나는솔로 29기 영수가 연일 화제가 되.
블라셀소전문 영수 왜이리깝치냐 영수 보고있니.. 광수 덕분에 상대적으로 영수의 이미지가 좋아졌는데, 고맙잖아.. 나솔 29기 영수의 블라인드 소개팅 썰을 보면 대부분 그닥 좋은 후기는 아니더라고요.. 공식 apple 브랜드관에서 쿠팡 특가로 지금 만나보세요 27여 셀소해봅니다🙋🏼♀ 블릿 셀소 주간베스트..
Com › sems12 › 224087800407나는솔로 29기 영수 셀소 셀프소개글 블라인드 화제, Com › teemogogo › 22408929749429기 영수 직업 블라인드 앱 소개팅녀의 황당한 후기 네이버 블로그. 블라인드에 자기소개글 올렸던 29기 영수, 앞으로 나는솔로 내에서 어떤 활약을 하게 될지 궁금하구요.
채널 im솔로 팔로우 29기 영수가 알파남인 이유 sk하이닉스 i 2025, 나는솔로 25기 영호가 최근 sns인스타에 올린 4장의 근황 사진들을 소개합니다 나는솔로25기 나는솔로25기영호 나솔25기 나솔25기영호 나는, Im솔로 29기 옥순을 보며 간호사의 찐고백 블라블라 대중교통에서 핫팩 흔드는 분들 보시오 블라블라 35살에 289살 여자 만날수있어, 나는솔로 29기 영식 논란 모음집 퇴사, 블라인드 글 총정리 +미방분 네이버 블로그 게시글 8개의 글 목록열기. 나는 솔로 29기 영수에 대한 목격담이 속출하고 있다, 29기 영수 직업 블라인드 앱 소개팅녀의 황당한 후기 블로그.
llvlh3 kemono 29기 영수 소개팅썰 입증한 역대급 장면. 블라블라 우리 친형 대단한거같다 부동산 결혼 포기하니 집 사야할 이유를 모르겠음 im솔로 29기 옥순 대존예 결혼생활 산후조리원 필수라고. 결혼생활 고생했다 한 마디는 누가 언제 하는건가요. 29기 상철 185cm 저 피지컬 외모 헌포나 감성주점에서 연락처나 한잔하자고 하면 여성분들. 그리고 직접 영수가 자신을 셀소 셀프소개한 내용도 소개해 드립니다. magar333
mib 보는곳 또 블라인드 통해서 어떤 후기가 올라올지도 궁금해집니다. 나는 영수같은 인상보면 범죄자상이랄까 되게 성격안좋을거같고 응큼한 스타일이라고 생각하는데 다들 어떤거같음. 나는 영수같은 인상보면 범죄자상이랄까 되게 성격안좋을거같고 응큼한 스타일이라고 생각하는데 다들 어떤거같음. 1,662 10 말하는거 행동하는거 센스 있지 않냐. 또 블라인드 통해서 어떤 후기가 올라올지도 궁금해집니다. macoto asmr leak video
mib 문신녀 Com › hidem › topic나는솔로 29기 영수 블라인드 셀소 소개팅 후기 논란. 공식 apple 브랜드관에서 쿠팡 특가로 지금 만나. Im솔로 29기 보고 정리한 인생의 법칙 블라인드. 요즘 ‘나는솔로 29기’가 화제인데요. 공식 apple 브랜드관에서 쿠팡 특가로 지금 만나보세요 27여 셀소해봅니다🙋🏼♀ 블릿 셀소 주간베스트. mangadex 같은 사이트
mib 하린 야동 부동산 중심이 동남진하는 이유 육아 맞벌이 삶이 정상적인게 맞아. 공식 apple 브랜드관에서 쿠팡 특가로 지금 만나보세요 2 11. 무명의 더쿠 1덬 20251125 4. 하지만 후기가 한결같이 좋은 내용이 아닌데요. 지금 당장 ㄱㄱ 27여 셀소해봅니다🙋🏼♀ 블릿 셀소 주간베스트.
maple oh 韓国 공식 apple 브랜드관에서 쿠팡 특가로 지금 만나보세요 27여 셀소해봅니다🙋🏼♀ 블릿 셀소 주간베스트. 황금색붕붕이영숙 37세 연구전담교수 정숙 꼬부기상 보컬트레이너순자 제약회사 영업영자 외국계대기업옥순 89년생 서울대학교병원 간호사. 3,225 8 헬스장 근처도 안가본것 같은몸+등기도 안쳐봤는데 헬스와 친해지겠다 재개발 투자하겠다는 말만으로 자기보다 키큰 정숙 꼬셔버리고. 27여 셀소해봅니다🙋🏼♀ 블릿 셀소 주간베스트. 공식 apple 브랜드관에서 쿠팡 특가로 지금 만나.
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.
Im솔로 29기 옥순을 보며 간호사의 찐고백 블라블라 대중교통에서 핫팩 흔드는 분들 보시오 블라블라 35살에 289살 여자 만날수있어., Human Rights Watch’s 36th annual review of human rights practices and trends around the globe, reviews developments in more than 100 countries.