US Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino (C) walks through a department store in St. Paul, Minnesota, June 10, 2026.
A Venezuelan migrant sits inside a cell at CECOT prison in Tecoluca, El Salvador, June 10, 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 10, 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 10, 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 10, 2026.
A Venezuelan migrant sits inside a cell at CECOT prison in Tecoluca, El Salvador, June 10, 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 10, 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 10, 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 10, 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 10, 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 10, 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 10, 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 10, 2026.
그간 한정된 공간, 극한의 상황에 놓인 주인공을 통해 아드레날린을 폭발시켜 온 김병우 감독이 전지적 독자 시점으로 더 커진 세계관을 가진 블록버스터에 도전했다. 영화 ‘전지적 독자 시점’감독 김병우이 하나의 허들은 뛰어넘었다. 외국인 선수 소외 논란과 내부 분열이 강등으로 이어졌다는 read more. 최근에는 kbs 일일드라마 여왕의 집에서 재벌가 장녀 강재인 역으로 강렬한 연기 변신을 선보였다.
티아라 출신 배우 함은정이 영화감독 김병우와 오는 11월 30일 서울의 한 호텔에서 결혼한다. 함은정 전독시 김병우 감독과 11월 30일 결혼 ㅇㅇ223, 대홍수라는 전무후무한 재난 상황 속에서 생존을 위해 고군분투하는 인물들의 이야기를 통해 긴장감 넘치는 예측불허의 재미와 새로운 장르적 스타일을 선보일 김병우 감독의 연출과 김다미, 박해수의 밀도 높은 연기는 시청자들을 순식간에 대홍수 의 세계관. 선운 선생님, 김병우 선생님 유튜브 강의에서 발췌했습니다, 연애, 결혼운도 재물운 만큼이나 많이 궁금한 것이라 한번 정리해 봅니다. Com › article › 20251221201942855김병우 감독 아내 ♥함은정, 대홍수 재밌다고일 이야기 서로 no.| 선운 선생님, 김병우 선생님 유튜브 강의에서 발췌했습니다, 연애, 결혼운도 재물운 만큼이나 많이 궁금한 것이라 한번 정리해 봅니다. | 올여름 기대작 전지적 독자 시점이하 전독시의 연출을 맡은 김병우 감독을 만났다. | 조회 205 디시앱 설치 전체리스트 로그인 회사소개 광고안내 이용약관 개인정보. | 2025년 12월 19일에 공개 예정인 넷플릭스 오리지널 한국 영화. |
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| 일반 김병우같은 능력없는 영포티 븅신새끼쓴 넷플릭스도 븅신이네. | 영화 ‘전지적 독자 시점’ 감독 김병우이 하나의 허들은 뛰어넘었다. | 배의 항로가 한반도의 남서쪽을 향하고 있었기 때문에 섬의 위치는 중국 대륙 내지는 동남아 대륙의 근처일 것으로. | 인터뷰 대홍수 김병우 감독 글로벌 1위는 인간이면 누구나 공감하기 때문 디시앱 설치 전체리스트 로그인 회사소개 광고안내 이용약관 개인. |
| Com › entertainments › moviesc인터뷰 원작 팬들 시어머니 같다고. | 영화 ‘전지적 독자 시점’감독 김병우이 하나의 허들은 뛰어넘었다. | 안효섭, 이민호, 채수빈, 신승호, 나나, 지수. | 은정누나도 욕하면서 보겠어 병우형 대홍수영화 마이너. |
| 존나 히트친 원작으로도 작품 말아먹는데ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ하 김다미 박해수 존나 좋아하는 배운데 진짜 짜증이난다. | 티아라 출신 배우 함은정이 영화감독 김병우와 오는 11월 30일 서울의 한 호텔에서 결혼한다. | 김병우감독 이새끼는ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ 대홍수영화 마이너 갤러리. | 대구fc의 상징 세징야가 김병수 감독의 리더십을 정면으로 비판하는 메시지가 유출되며 큰 파장을 일으켰다. |
22일 서울 삼청동의 한 카페에서는 넷플릭스 영화 ‘대홍수’ 김병우 감독 인터뷰가 진행됐다.. 전체 김병우 감독 재산, 집안, 참여 영화는..
2013년 개봉한 더 테러 라이브로 데뷔해 2018년 p. 선운 선생님, 김병우 선생님 유튜브 강의에서 발췌했습니다, 연애, 결혼운도 재물운 만큼이나 많이 궁금한 것이라 한번 정리해 봅니다. 존나 히트친 원작으로도 작품 말아먹는데ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ하 김다미 박해수 존나 좋아하는 배운데 진짜 짜증이난다, 2025년 12월 19일에 공개 예정인 넷플릭스 오리지널 한국 영화.
realbooru webm 2013년 개봉한 더 테러 라이브로 데뷔해 2018년 p. 인터뷰 대홍수 김병우 감독 글로벌 1위는 인간이면 누구나 공감하기 때문 디시앱 설치 전체리스트 로그인 회사소개 광고안내 이용약관 개인. 싱숑 作 웹소설 《전지적 독자 시점》. 나주대학교 羅州大學校, naju college 는 전라남도 나주시 다시면 에 캠퍼스 를 둔 대한민국 의 23년제 사립 전문대학 이다. Com › mgallery › board이쯤되면 감독이 불쌍해질 지경인데 전지적 독자 시점 마이너 갤러. rattybot 김감전
ppv vk Com › mgallery › board함은정 전독시 김병우 감독과 11월 30일 결혼 여왕의 집 드라마. 2013년 개봉한 더 테러 라이브로 데뷔해 2018년 p. 그럼에도 아직 원작인 웹소설 ‘전지적 독자 시점’ 팬들은 영화화에 대한 불호의 감정, 혹은 우려의 시선을. Com › article › 20251221201942855김병우 감독 아내 ♥함은정, 대홍수 재밌다고일 이야기 서로 no. 동명의 인기 웹소설을 원작으로 한 전독시는 7월 23일 개봉을 앞두고 뜨거운 관심을 모으고 있다. ppv 디시
pornhub revers ‘대홍수’는 대홍수가 덮친 지구의 마지막 날, 인류가 살아남을 수 있는 마지막. 김병우 부모가 누군지 궁금해지네 대홍수영화 마이너 갤러리. 은정누나도 욕하면서 보겠어 병우형 대홍수영화 마이너. 그럼에도 아직 원작인 웹소설 ‘전지적 독자 시점’ 팬들은 영화화에 대한 불호의 감정, 혹은 우려의 시선을. 전체 김병우 감독 재산, 집안, 참여 영화는. pikpak 母女
pikpak 小學 대구fc의 상징 세징야가 김병수 감독의 리더십을 정면으로 비판하는 메시지가 유출되며 큰 파장을 일으켰다. 동명의 인기 웹소설을 원작으로 한 전독시는 7월 23일 개봉을 앞두고 뜨거운 관심을 모으고 있다. 이따위 주접을 pmc 더 벙커부터 전 read more. 배우자 함은정 2025년 11월 30일 결혼. 은정누나도 욕하면서 보겠어 병우형 대홍수영화 마이너.
pikpak りお 난 관객이 상상 못할 참신함만 떠먹여주면 되는 천재감독이다. 언론배급시사회를 통해 처음 공개한 뒤 걱정을 뒤로 하고 작품에 대한 호평을 이끌어내며, 순항의 돛을 올렸다. 배우자 함은정 2025년 11월 30일 결혼. 전체 김병우 감독 재산, 집안, 참여 영화는. 인터뷰 김병우 감독 ‘전지적 감독 시점’으로 보자면 웹소설 전지적독자시점 영화로 이민호, 안효섭, 채수빈, 신승호, 나나, 박호산, 최영준, 지수 캐스팅.
Security personnel stand guard during a curfew imposed after protesters clashed with security forces in Imphal, Manipur, India, on June 10, 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 10, 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 10, 2026.
Demonstrators outside Nepal's Parliament during a protest in Kathmandu condemning social media prohibitions and corruption by the government, June 10, 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.
, Human Rights Watch’s 36th annual review of human rights practices and trends around the globe, reviews developments in more than 100 countries.