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.

Leporem_jiwoo 지우 대표원장. 울산미용실 헤어르뽀렘 대표원장 지우 아이롱펌. Foryou didyouknow d4vd. 남은 12월도 모두들 따뜻하고 행복하게 보내시길 바랍니다﫶 懶 울산미용실 일상 울산 울산미용실추천 소통 미용인 데일리 소통 울산남자머리 셀카 울산삼산미용실 울산다운펌 울산아이롱펌 미용인.

요즘같이 온라인 마케팅이 필수인 시대에, 매장을 가장 빠르게 알리는 방법을 잘 인지하고 있는 거 같습니다.. 남은 12월도 모두들 따뜻하고 행복하게 보내시길 바랍니다﫶 懶 울산미용실 일상 울산 울산미용실추천 소통 미용인 데일리 소통 울산남자머리 셀카 울산삼산미용실 울산다운펌 울산아이롱펌 미용인.. 친구들이 기다리는 주말, 방학은 나에겐 그저 미용실 풀.. 삼산점 매장은 2층에 있고 내부는 약 90평으로 큰 편이며, 월 매출 규모는 월 8천9천만 원 정도 된다고 합니다..

설돌 놀이공원

서연우 G 사건

설윤 딜도

2,196 likes, 49 comments leporem_jiwoo on novem 나의 28살 기록 끝. 이곳은 고객들의 재방문율도 높아 보이며, 리뷰도 만족도가 좋은 편입니다. 648 likes, 32 comments leporem_jiwoo on febru 매일 똑같은 일상의 반복이라 지루할지라도 그 속에서 소소한 행복을 찾자 행복은 내스스로가 만들어가는 것이니懶 울산 울산미용실 울산미용실추천 일상 소통 미용인 데일리 울산남자머리 셀카 울산삼산미용실 헤어디자이너 헤어디자이너.

울산에서 헤어르뽀렘 미용실 대표 원장으로 활동하며, 6만 팔로워를 거느린 인기 인플루언서 지우 @leporem_jiwoo 님, 4k+ following 1010 posts @leporem_jiwoo 헤어르뽀렘삼산점삼산2호점삼산3호점 대표원장 ‼️머리는 울산1등‼️재방문,소개방문1위 헤어. Watch short videos about leporem_jiwoo from people around the world. 헤어 르뽀렘 대표 원장님 @leporem_jiwoo 제이컬링의 led 속눈썹 시술 만족해 주시고 소개에.

서든어택 제로포인트 Sjbeauty__yoons profile picture. More replies to leporem_jiwoo. 2,428 likes, 108 comments leporem_jiwoo on aug 저는 신규 유입도 중요하지만 가장 중요한 건 재방문이라고 생각해요. 1,128 likes, 32 comments leporem_jiwoo on septem 5번째 바디프로필 보정본아 빨리와줘懶 아쉬운마음에 올리는 b컷 셀렉한 a컷들은 얼마나 이쁠까 헷 바프찍은지 두달 귀찮아서 미루다가 어제 사진셀렉해서 보내따 보정본 받을려면 또 두달정도 걸리겠지 여러분 바프찍으면 귀찮아지기전에 바로. 두상에 맞게 보완,강조할점을 찾아 맞춤디자인 해드립니다 﫶 아이롱펌 디자인다운펌 시스루댄디펌. 세탁볼 디시

샤칭즈 Photo by 울산미용실 헤어르뽀렘삼산점 @leporem_samsan. 친구들이 기다리는 주말, 방학은 나에겐 그저 미용실 풀. Bye 29 welcome 29 again 만 나이로는 아직 스물아홉 울산. 두상에 맞게 보완,강조할점을 찾아 맞춤디자인 해드립니다 﫶 아이롱펌 디자인다운펌 시스루댄디펌. Leeth2880s profile picture 이태희 @leeth2880 janu at 425 am. 서윤슬 꼭노

성도착증 디시 648 likes, 32 comments leporem_jiwoo on febru 매일 똑같은 일상의 반복이라 지루할지라도 그 속에서 소소한 행복을 찾자 행복은 내스스로가 만들어가는 것이니懶 울산 울산미용실 울산미용실추천 일상 소통 미용인 데일리 울산남자머리 셀카 울산삼산미용실 헤어디자이너 헤어디자이너. 울산광역시 남구 삼산로267번길 613 2층. View the daily instagram analytics of 울산미용실 헤어르뽀렘 대표원장 지우 아이롱펌 남자머리 1등 and track progress charts, view future predictions, related channels, and track realtime live follower counts. 755 likes, 12 comments leporem_jiwoo on j 사람마다 뒷목라인의 생김새는 달라요 뒷목라인이 짧은 분들은 상고로 올리게 되면 뒤에서 봤을때 머리가 짧아보이기때문에 기장을 조금 길게 빼는게 예쁜 밸런스를 만듭니다. Check out the latest photos and videos from leporem_jiwoo on instagram after you follow them. 설돌 차간단

선바 현프로디테 삼산점 매장은 2층에 있고 내부는 약 90평으로 큰 편이며, 월 매출 규모는 월 8천9천만 원 정도 된다고 합니다. Leeth2880s profile picture 이태희 @leeth2880 janu at 425 am. 이곳은 고객들의 재방문율도 높아 보이며, 리뷰도 만족도가 좋은 편입니다. Com › justhairjob › 223399486418헤어르뽀렘 삼산점 가격, 지우 디자이너, 울산 미용실 네이버 블. Com › post › 6720266957371763661046posted by @leporem_jiwoo 울산미용실 헤어르뽀렘 대표원장 지우.

성인웹화보 이래 봬도 헬린이 4년 차_ 헤어디자이너가 운동하면 좋은 점 상체가 앞으로 말린 채 일하는 직업 특성상 운동으로 라운드 숄더. 울산에서 헤어르뽀렘 미용실 대표 원장으로 활동하며, 6만 팔로워를 거느린 인기 인플루언서 지우 @leporem_jiwoo 님. Check out the latest photos and videos from leporem_jiwoo on instagram after you follow them. 27살에 90평 미용실 대표원장이 될 수 있었던 8가지 비밀‼️ 1️⃣ 한 우물만 파기 초5 미용학원 등록,중2 대형 미용실 아르바이트 시작,미용고 진학 빠른. 6,321 likes, 249 comments leporem_jiwoo on febru 매일 똑같은 일상의 반복이라 지루할지라도 그 속에서 소소한 행복을 찾자 행복은 내스스로가 만들어가는 것이니懶 울산 울산미용실 울산미용실추천 일상 소통 미용인 데일리 울산남자머리 셀카 울산삼산미용실 헤어디자이너 헤어디자이너.

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.