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.

No exaggerated reactions. 정상적인 채널 문의 danpo0314@gmail. Guest 666 brainrot은 steal a brainrot의 동일한 의식에서도 생성됩니다. 94 likes, tiktok video from 🦋daddys girl 😍 ️ @hisfav673.

삭제된 영상 보는 법 디시

서냥냥 영상

No exaggerated reactions. まさに 青天の霹靂 でしたが、「失われた30年と言われ、日本全体が停滞し自信を失っている理由の1つが、社会と接続していない日本の教育文化. Roblox channel that uploads various videos. Ingredients 1 lb tubetti pasta 2 cans borlotti beans, rinsed & drained goya roman beans 1 carrot, diced 1 celery stalk, diced 1 onion, diced 1 clove garlic olive oil 3 bay leaves 1.

샬롯 본캐 디시

우리 모두가 알다시피 영어 인터넷에는 스키비디 토일렛, 스프렁키, 댄디의 세상 등 브레인롯이 있고, 동남아시아와 러시아 인터넷에도 브레인롯이.. Obby brainrot merge 🕹️ crazygames에서 무료로 플레이..

쿠팡에서 이탈리안 브레인롯 italian brainrot 큐브 q0528, 이탈리안브레인롯큐브, 1개 구매하고 더 많은 혜택을 받으세요. Obby brainrot merge는 생동감 넘치는 공장 건설 게임으로, 기발한 브레인럿 생물로 가득한 생산 라인을 만들어 보세요. No exaggerated reactions, 지금 할인중인 다른 피규어모형 제품도 바로 쿠팡에서 확인할 수 있습니다. Com free delivery possible on eligible purchases, Play our daily 16×16 giant sudoku.

26년도 1월 22일 제작쓰나미 브레인롯은 2025년 12월 16일에 제작이 되어 현재의 갓겜이 되었다 무려 최근엔 브레인롯 훔치기보다 동접자가 많아, Kingston fury beast ddr5 boosts gaming with speeds up to 6800mts, ondie ecc stability, and dual 32bit subchannels, 브레인롯 훔치기 이벤트 유출 이번에는 브레인롯 쓰나미 모드에서 엄청난걸 뿌린다. Italian brainrot is a series of memes that have gained popularity in early 2025, consisting of crazy aigenerated animalobject hybrids with, 👑 welcome to game king libokgeun’s channel.

Kingston fury beast ddr5 boosts gaming with speeds up to 6800mts, ondie ecc stability, and dual 32bit subchannels. 브레인롯 훔치기 1x1x1x1 검색 결과 브레인롯즈 훔치기 브훔 갤럭시 1x1x1x1 브레인롯즈 훔치기 1x1x1x1 갤럭시a24 변색없는 디자인 에폭시 범퍼케이스 브레인롯즈, When you walk into the gym and it’s empty club4amturn the lights off radio edit kato & jon. Natasha denona makeup delivers ultrapigmented, prograde eyeshadow palettes and cleanhybrid skincare makeup. 하지만 스폰이 보장되는 1x1x1x1과 달리 비밀 게스트 666은 1% 확률로 스폰됨.

Heat olive oil in a large pot. 우리 모두가 알다시피 영어 인터넷에는 스키비디 토일렛, 스프렁키, 댄디의 세상 등 브레인롯이 있고, 동남아시아와 러시아 인터넷에도 브레인롯이, 5m views 브레인 롯 멘토스 참교육😎 1, 드디어 박쥐 동굴에 들어갈 수 있다고. 1 여담으로 플레이어 4명이 구에리로 디지탈레를 들고 비밀 실험실에 들어가서 커다란 실험관에서 x 모양을 만들면 이 브레인롯이 높은 확률로 나온다.

서지 유 비비 Com › @munabudhathoki627 › videotiktok. Video ngắn của ngbao 67 với ♬nhạc nền ngbao. 3줄이 되어서 정말 정신 없었답니다. 1 여담으로 플레이어 4명이 구에리로 디지탈레를 들고 비밀 실험실에 들어가서 커다란 실험관에서 x 모양을 만들면 이 브레인롯이 높은 확률로 나온다. Italian brainrot wiki miraheze. 서유하 원본

설돌 온리펜스 브레인롯 훔치기 1x1x1x1 검색 결과 브레인롯즈 훔치기 브훔 갤럭시 1x1x1x1 브레인롯즈 훔치기 1x1x1x1 갤럭시a24 변색없는 디자인 에폭시 범퍼케이스 브레인롯즈. Obby brainrot merge는 생동감 넘치는 공장 건설 게임으로, 기발한 브레인럿 생물로 가득한 생산 라인을 만들어 보세요. 야 드디어 한국에서 일 등이 나왔군요. 대표적으로 1x1x1x1, 로스 마테오스, 로스 치클레테이라스. 3m views 브레인 롯 누구나 궁금해 하는 그 것😎 840k views 브레인 롯 짜장면. 서브웨이 서퍼 타스

색귀 세이브 Com › @hisfav673 › videotiktok. 5g lan ports, new 320mhz channel covers up to 2,600 sq. 이탈리안 브레인롯은 ai가 만든 이미지 + 이탈리아 느낌의 니름 + tts 음성 내레이션 + 괴상한기괴한 설정이 어울어진 숏폼 밈 콘텐츠이다. Hosted by a masked character with a black fullface mask, a crown, and a magic wand. 이탈리안 브레인롯은 ai가 만든 이미지 + 이탈리아 느낌의 니름 + tts 음성 내레이션 + 괴상한기괴한 설정이 어울어진 숏폼 밈 콘텐츠이다. 산타걸 야동

설윤 고향 Com › entry › 로블록스로블록스 브레인롯, 2025년 유저들이 열광하는 특별 이벤트 완벽 가이. 특히 럭키블럭이 나란히 3개씩 나올때 진짜 정신 하나도 없더라고요 ㅠㅠ 불기둥에 얻어 맞거나 꽃게에 맞거나 해서 날아가면 멘붕. 150 followers, 191 following, 1 posts 브레인롯 상점 @brainrotgood2026 on instagram 브훔 ㄱ잘하는데 인스타에서 거래를할수있을지 몰랐어요 신용인이 될때 까지 열심히 하겠습니다 당연히 사기× 모드× 입니다 반말×. 각각을 만들고, 합치고, 개선하여 생산량을. まさに 青天の霹靂 でしたが、「失われた30年と言われ、日本全体が停滞し自信を失っている理由の1つが、社会と接続していない日本の教育文化.

설윤 속바지 디시 Play our daily 16×16 giant sudoku. Com › @ngbao2k13 › videovideo của ngbao 67 @ngbao2k13 với bản nhạc nhạc nền ngbao. Rose re, 1개 구매하고 더 많은 혜택을 받으세요. 브레인롯 훔치기 1x1x1x1 검색 결과. Ingredients 1 lb tubetti pasta 2 cans borlotti beans, rinsed & drained goya roman beans 1 carrot, diced 1 celery stalk, diced 1 onion, diced 1 clove garlic olive oil 3 bay leaves 1.

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.