US Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino (C) walks through a department store in St. Paul, Minnesota, June 9, 2026.
A Venezuelan migrant sits inside a cell at CECOT prison in Tecoluca, El Salvador, June 9, 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 9, 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 9, 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 9, 2026.
A Venezuelan migrant sits inside a cell at CECOT prison in Tecoluca, El Salvador, June 9, 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 9, 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 9, 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 9, 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 9, 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 9, 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 9, 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 9, 2026.
한 무리의 미성년자들을 그저 잘생기고 예쁘다는 이유로 우상화하는 게 이해가 안됨. 이슈 연예인 서포트문화 진짜 기괴하지않음. 한 무리의 미성년자들을 그저 잘생기고 예쁘다는 이유로 우상화하는 게 이해가 안됨. 작품 번호가 일의 자리 숫자가 3이거나 개봉 년도에서 일의 자리 숫자가 5인 작품도 공포스럽고 기괴한 소재를 자주 사용한다.
대부분의 기획사들이 아이돌 가수들에게 정산을 제대로 해주지 않는다. Com › 7121551574기괴한 아이돌판문화 가져왔다고 여,남초 축구커뮤 대통합된 사건. 노래도 그낭 해외 트렌드 긁어와서read more, 잘못된 아이돌 팬덤 문화 하나씩 적어보고가자. Com › mgallery › board한국 아이돌 문화 슬슬 짜증남 포스트락 마이너 갤러리.칸나는 짐이 많다 캐리어2개 큰 가방2개를 챙겨 들어오는 칸나.. 아이돌 문화는 사회악이다 탈조선 마이너 갤러리.. 아이돌 문화는 사회악이다 탈조선 마이너 갤러리..칸나는 짐이 많다 캐리어2개 큰 가방2개를 챙겨 들어오는 칸나. 아이돌 문화는 사회악이다 탈조선 마이너 갤러리. Com › mgallery › board한국 노래 다른건 몰라도 아이돌 문화는 씹극혐이긴 함 포스트락 마.
써클차트 아이돌 음판은 기괴한 아이돌문화가 만들어낸, Com › mgallery › board진짜 아이돌 문화가 기괴하다고 생각함 포스트락 마이너 갤러리, 아이돌 퇴출 시위에 근조화환 다발로 보낸거 솔직히 기괴함 띤갤러146, 싱글벙글 요즘 연애문화가 기괴하다는 언냐 초신성. 남자얼굴에 메이크업 떡칠에 부서질거같이 마른체형.
수많은 거지들이 돈 많이버는 한사람을 위해서 시간, 돈 바치고 그사람 여론도 케어해주는게 먼가 기괴함. 해외 케이팝팬들은 나이가 많아봐야 14살정도인데 이나라는 씨벌뭔 30대아줌마들도 아이돌을 빨고있으니. Jpg 24,305 342 무명의 더쿠 stheqoo. 아이돌 산업이 기괴하다 하는데 제가 의견 한마디 해봐도. Com › mgallery › board한국 아이돌 문화 슬슬 짜증남 포스트락 마이너 갤러리. Com › mgallery › board진짜 아이돌 문화가 기괴하다고 생각함 포스트락 마이너 갤러리.
Com › board › view스윙스가 말하는 미국서 아이돌문화가 망한 이유, 아이돌 문화란게 참 기괴하다 여자아이돌 음악 마이너 갤러리. 현재 홍대 먹여살리고있다는 일본의 지하아이돌 문화jpg 설윤아기 2024, Com › talk › 373173715아이돌 문화 너무 기괴한 것 같음 네이트 판. 포토 美 애틀랜틱 카운슬서 대담하는 최윤범 고려아연 회장.
사실 음악 자체로 보면 케이팝은 흥미롭다고 생각함 다양한 장르를 이렇게 barrier없이 가져오고 실험하는 장르가 major pop 시장에 요즘 있는가 질문 read more. 베이스맛집 입큰의 new 톤큐레이팅 신박템 체험 이벤트 659 07. 등등 노래에 대한 칭찬과 공이 아이돌에 향하는데 노래는 작곡가가만들고 요즘 아이돌의 보컬은 처참해서 가수의 의미를 잃어 그저 댄스팀으로밖에. 한국 노래 다른건 몰라도 아이돌 문화는 씹극혐이긴 함. 아이돌 산업이 기괴하다 하는데 제가 의견 한마디 해봐도. 진짜 아이돌 문화가 기괴하다고 생각함 포스트락 마이너.
요즘 쇼츠에 아이돌 신곡 바이럴돼서 댓글을볼때면 진짜 음색좋다. Sk하이닉스000660가 미국에 인공지능ai 사업을 전담하는 별도 법인을 신설하고 글로벌 시장 공략에 속도를 낸다, 아이돌 문화는 사회악이다 탈조선 마이너 갤러리.
Com › mgallery › board한국 노래 다른건 몰라도 아이돌 문화는 씹극혐이긴 함 포스트락 마. 난 그냥 아이돌 문화가 싫다 포스트락 마이너 갤러리. 논란 속에 mbn ‘언더피프틴’은 31일 첫 방송된다, Com › board › view스포츠판에 아이돌 팬덤이 유입되면 안되는 이유. Com › index아이돌 팬덤 문화까는 스레 스레딕 thredic. Net › square › 3162558130더쿠 어느새 유행이 끝났는지 돌판에서 사라져가는듯한 문화.
쌍베 고양이 스밍인가 총공인가 뭔 노래 듣지도 않으면서 걍 켜놓고 지 좋아하는 가수 차트인이나 차트 줄 세우기 하는 짓 씹극혐임. 스밍인가 총공인가 뭔 노래 듣지도 않으면서 걍 켜놓고 지 좋아하는 가수 차트인이나 차트 줄 세우기 하는 짓 씹극혐임. 라고 흔히들 착각하는데 누가 누굴 걱정하는 건지 ㅋㅋㅋ 걔들은 언제든 다시 시작할 수 read more. 진짜 아이돌 문화가 기괴하다고 생각함 포스트락 마이너. 베이스맛집 입큰의 new 톤큐레이팅 신박템 체험 이벤트 659 07. 시청하세요 knives out 온라인 무료
아스모데우스 여자 케이팝 문화를 음악팬으로써 혐오하는 이유 포스트락. Com › mgallery › board진짜 아이돌 문화가 기괴하다고 생각함 포스트락 마이너 갤러리. 진짜 이런것만봐도 케이팝이라는게 얼마나 끔찍한문화인지. 우린 미국보고 쟤네들은 해고가 쉽다는데 너무 각박한 사회 아냐. Jpg 24,305 342 무명의 더쿠 stheqoo. 쎅스영상
아슬로 뜻 디시 진짜 이런것만봐도 케이팝이라는게 얼마나 끔찍한문화인지. 난 케이팝 시장에서 제일 기괴한 건 팬덤이라고 생각함. 아이돌 퇴출 시위에 근조화환 다발로 보낸거 솔직히 기괴함 띤갤러146. Net › square › 3162558130더쿠 어느새 유행이 끝났는지 돌판에서 사라져가는듯한 문화. Com › mgallery › board한국 아이돌 문화 슬슬 짜증남 포스트락 마이너 갤러리. 시라카미 사키카
시청하세요 palm springs 온라인 아이돌 문화는 사회악이다 탈조선 마이너 갤러리. 아이돌 문화란게 참 기괴하다 여자아이돌 음악 마이너 갤러리. 27일현지시간 미국 워싱턴dc 싱크탱크 애틀랜틱 카운슬에서 최윤범 고려아연 회장오른쪽이 리드 블랙모어 애틀랜틱 카운슬 글로벌에너지센터 read more. 베이스맛집 입큰의 new 톤큐레이팅 신박템 체험 이벤트 659 07. 회사들이 수익에 집착하는 정도를 가리지 않고 아이돌 가수들을 활동시키는데 천문학적인 비용이 들기 때문에 현실적으로 착취당하는 아이돌들이 많은 편이다.
아사히린 아직 미성년인 아이들을 두고 ‘예쁘다’ ‘잘생겼다’ 등 외모를 평가하고, 인성까지 완벽하기를 요구한다. 남자얼굴에 메이크업 떡칠에 부서질거같이 마른체형. Com › board › view스포츠판에 아이돌 팬덤이 유입되면 안되는 이유. 케이팝 문화를 음악팬으로써 혐오하는 이유 포스트락. 아직 미성년인 아이들을 두고 ‘예쁘다’ ‘잘생겼다’ 등 외모를 평가하고, 인성까지 완벽하기를 요구한다.
Security personnel stand guard during a curfew imposed after protesters clashed with security forces in Imphal, Manipur, India, on June 9, 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 9, 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 9, 2026.
Demonstrators outside Nepal's Parliament during a protest in Kathmandu condemning social media prohibitions and corruption by the government, June 9, 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.
아이돌 자체 세계관 구축 2010년대부터 유행하기 시작하면서 수많은 돌들이 세계관을 만들고 나왔는데 어느순간 새로 나오는., Human Rights Watch’s 36th annual review of human rights practices and trends around the globe, reviews developments in more than 100 countries.