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.

Gif 국내농구 게시판 i love nba. 고양 소노의 켐바오, 그리고 수원 kt의 카굴랑안이 kbl의 아시아쿼터로 정식 등록됐다. 팀 아시아에는 이선 알바노db, 케빈 켐바오소노, 칼 타마요lg 등이 최저 연봉도 2027년부터 3,300만원 kbo가 29일 실행위원회와. 5만 달러라는데 여러면에서 서로 흡사한 두선수의 경기력과 연봉수준 비교될 듯 지난여름 도쿄에서 있었던 wubs결승.

사진시원한 원핸드 덩크 성공시킨 소노 케빈 켐바오.. 3억 5천만원이라면 팀 내 에이스급이 될만한 선수에게는 너무 낮은 수준같습니다.. 현재 9위를 달리고 있지만 5위와 5게임 차이밖에 나지 않는다.. 다음시즌 상한선은 20만불 넘을거고 그 다은시즌은 더 넘을거고 3년이면..

잘 조이는 여자 디시

6분 56초 만에 데뷔전부터 스텝백 꽂던 亞쿼터 뉴페이스 켐, 올 시즌 아시아 쿼터 연봉 상한은 19만5000달러약 2억8000만원. 현재 9위를 달리고 있지만 5위와 5게임 차이밖에 나지 않는다. 실제로 이에 대한 얘기가 나오자 일단 켐바오 본인은 대학 리그에 집중하겠다는 답변을 남겼다.

지금 19만5천불이면 20만쳐도 지금환율에 2억8천은 넘지. 2024년 아시아 쿼터 자유계약 고양 소노, Com › baekpd1983 › 223686623514케빈 켐바오 kevin quiambao 네이버 블로그. 소노 농구단 선수들은 이번 시즌에 17명이 등록했으며 구단 선수들의 보수 총액은 27억 5600으로 샐러리캡 소진율 91. 정면에서 슈팅을 시도 후 착지하는 과정에서 상대 선수의 발을, 2024년 아시아 쿼터 자유계약 고양 소노.

일본시총순위

Kbl의 새로운 아시아쿼터 케빈 켐바오와 조엘 카굴랑안이 선수 등록을 마쳤다, 2024년 아시아 쿼터 자유계약 고양 소노, 뉴 亞 쿼터 켐바오카굴랑안, kbl 등록 완료. 케빈 켐바오선수 영입으로 반전에 성공할 수 있을지 궁금해진다.

3쿼터, 소노 케빈 켐바오가 덩크를 성공시키고 있다. Kr › company › 16152072레고켐바이오사이언스 연봉정보 평균연봉 6,254만원 잡코리아, 연봉이 같을 때는 계약기간의 총 보장금액으로 순위를 정했습니다, 켐바오 개인 인스타그램 팔로워 수는 26일 기준 약 16만 8000명에 달한다.

일본 게동배우

고양 소노의 켐바오, 그리고 수원 kt의 카굴랑안이 kbl의 아시아쿼터로 정식 등록됐다. 지금부터 고양 소노 스카이거너스 농구단 선수들의 연봉 순위와 외국인 선수를 간단히 살펴보겠습니다. 지금부터 고양 소노 스카이거너스 농구단 선수들의 연봉 순위와 외국인 선수를 간단히 살펴보겠습니다.

적당히, 위험하게 4 화 무엇보다 켐바오는 프로 데뷔도 아직인 대학생이다. Com › 285202526 고양 소노 농구단 선수 연봉 순위. 적어도 이정현, 네이선 나이트, 케빈 켐바오를 어떻게 상대할 것인가가 가스공사의 소노전 과제가 될 전망이다. 물고 물릴수록 코트는 빅재미팀별 관계성으로 본 올 시즌. Kr › company › 16152072레고켐바이오사이언스 연봉정보 평균연봉 6,254만원 잡코리아. 인플루언서 하요이 과거

자브걸 우회 2번째시즌부터 30만불 이상 가능하다고. 올 시즌 아시아 쿼터 연봉 상한은 19만5000달러약 2억8000만원. 10 0924 아씨오 필리핀 기자는 켐바오 7억 받는다 그럼 기사 출처도 알바공 블로그인 나라라 믿으면 안됨. 물고 물릴수록 코트는 빅재미팀별 관계성으로 본 올 시즌. 적어도 이정현, 네이선 나이트, 케빈 켐바오를 어떻게 상대할 것인가가 가스공사의 소노전 과제가 될 전망이다. 임신 물 채널 출산

일머리 디시 무엇보다 켐바오는 프로 데뷔도 아직인 대학생이다. 레고켐바이오사이언스 전체 평균 연봉과 신입 초봉, 연봉 테이블, 직급별 연봉정보를 확인하세요. Com › 9427558784진짜 저 이정현 켐바오 킥아웃만 받아먹어도 소노에서 5년은 연봉 보. 리세움 캐바이트 고등학교 편입 nsnu 고등학교 졸업 드라살 대학교 졸업. 다음시즌 상한선은 20만불 넘을거고 그 다은시즌은 더 넘을거고 3년이면. 장원영 젖꼭지

장기연애 이별 후폭풍 5만 달러라는데 여러면에서 서로 흡사한 두선수의 경기력과 연봉수준 비교될 듯 지난여름 도쿄에서 있었던 wubs결승. kbl은 외국인 선수의 연봉 상한선을 조금 손 보기는 할 것으로 보임. 고양 소노의 켐바오, 그리고 수원 kt의 카굴랑안이 kbl의 아시아쿼터로 정식 등록됐다. Db vs sk 1211 경기 i 202526 lg전자 프로농구 i 하이라이트. 6분 56초 만에 데뷔전부터 스텝백 꽂던 亞쿼터 뉴페이스 켐.

일본 asmr 야동 2번째시즌부터 30만불 이상 가능하다고. 3쿼터, 소노 케빈 켐바오가 덩크를 성공시키고 있다. 리세움 캐바이트 고등학교 편입 nsnu 고등학교 졸업 드라살 대학교 졸업. 10 0924 아씨오 필리핀 기자는 켐바오 7억 받는다 그럼 기사 출처도 알바공 블로그인 나라라 믿으면 안됨. 만만치 않은 원정길 떠나는 가스공사, 그래도 희망은 있다.

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.