US Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino (C) walks through a department store in St. Paul, Minnesota, June 16, 2026.
A Venezuelan migrant sits inside a cell at CECOT prison in Tecoluca, El Salvador, June 16, 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 16, 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 16, 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 16, 2026.
A Venezuelan migrant sits inside a cell at CECOT prison in Tecoluca, El Salvador, June 16, 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 16, 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 16, 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 16, 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 16, 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 16, 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 16, 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 16, 2026.
1편에 이어서 이번에는 일본 헌팅 장소에 대해서 설명하겠습니다. Megcvmcohk 짐승처럼 물었다지방의회 의장 아들, 식당서 술 마시다 폭행강원 춘천시 한 술집에서 일면식 없는 업주와 손님을 폭행한 40대 남성이 검찰에 넘겨졌다. 도쿄 중에서도 가장 사람이 몰리는 5개 지역으로 구분하여 소개할게요. 지난달 23일 강원 춘천경찰서는 a 42씨를.
저는 45년전쯤 도쿄로 여행을 가서 일본인 현지 친구와 방문한 적이 있는데요. 지난달 23일 강원 춘천경찰서는 a 42씨를. 도쿄 중에서도 가장 사람이 몰리는 5개 지역으로 구분하여 소개할게요.잘생기면 도쿄 번화가에 아무것도 안하고 서있어도 헌팅 당함. 84 댓글 리플수정방구석들아 뭔나라망신타령이세요 ㅎㅎ 이성을 원하는게 자연의 이치인데다른 나라는 안그럴것 같나요, ㅋㅋ 앗 참고로 우리 한국분들의 헌팅 추천방법은, 일단 길을 물어보시기 바랍니다 그러면 일단 먹힙니다. 헌팅 추천 지역을 8곳을 정리해 드립니다, 도쿄 2030 직장인들이 모이는 헌팅의 성지.
집회사집회사만 반복하다 보니 애초에 새로운 이성을 만날 기회도 없다.. 도쿄 헌팅포차 거리 에비스 요코초, 진짜 난파 개쩌는 장소 네이버 블로그 일본 39개의 글 목록열기..
| 84 댓글 리플수정방구석들아 뭔나라망신타령이세요 ㅎㅎ 이성을 원하는게 자연의 이치인데다른 나라는 안그럴것 같나요. | 코리도 거리가 헌팅의 성지로 변모하게 된 역사적 배경 2. | 역난파, 혼여, 클럽, 약스압 ㄴㅍㄴㅍ1. | 본인 일본어 못함 짐승처럼 물었다지방의회 의장 아들, 식당서 술 마시다 폭행 snaver. |
|---|---|---|---|
| 도쿄 2030 직장인들이 모이는 헌팅의 성지. | 주방을 중심으로 ㅁ자로 스탠드형식 + 좌석 테이블 8개정도. | Megcvmcohk 짐승처럼 물었다지방의회 의장 아들, 식당서 술 마시다 폭행강원 춘천시 한 술집에서 일면식 없는 업주와 손님을 폭행한 40대 남성이 검찰에 넘겨졌다. | 1편에 이어서 이번에는 일본 헌팅 장소에 대해서 설명하겠습니다. |
| 클럽이랑 바 이자카야 같은곳 가서 헌팅 해본거임 일단 인터넷좀 검색해보니까 한국처럼 번화가 길바닥에서 헌팅하는걸 난파 ナンパ 라고 하는데 그짓거리 개극혐한다고 절대 하지말라해서 이자카야 가서 말걸려고 했는데 일본어를 ㅈㄴ 못하니까 말걸기도. | Com › board › view도쿄 헌팅 어디가좋아. | 그리고 도쿄클럽 vip및 게스트 원하시는 분들은 오픈톡에 들어오셔도 되지만 단톡은 싫으신 분들은 인스타 @japanclub_md 이분 팔로우하고 dm걸어주세여. | Maestría en gestión internacional en españa. |
| 도쿄 2030 직장인들이 모이는 헌팅의 성지 1. | 시부야는 갸루계가 많고 대체적으로 여자들의 레벨이 높은 곳입니다. | 헌팅 추천 지역을 8곳을 정리해 드립니다. | 글로 배우는 코리도 거리 제대로 즐기는 법 3. |
| 한국에서 넷이 가끔 술먹다가 헌팅 시도하면 여자들이 경멸의 눈빛 보내. | 그리고 도쿄클럽 vip및 게스트 원하시는 분들은 오픈톡에 들어오셔도 되지만 단톡은 싫으신 분들은 인스타 @japanclub_md 이분 팔로우하고 dm걸어주세여. | 1편 에 이어서 이번에는 일본 헌팅 장소에 대해서 설명하겠습니다. | 한국에서 넷이 가끔 술먹다가 헌팅 시도하면 여자들이 경멸의 눈빛 보내. |
평소에 클럽 혼자 스텐딩해도 70프로 넘게 성공은 해서 난이도는 상관없는데. 역난파, 혼여, 클럽, 약스압 ㄴㅍㄴㅍ1, 도쿄 목요일 헌팅명소 추천좀 여행일본 갤러리 아톰이 답인가유. 그리고 도쿄클럽 vip및 게스트 원하시는 분들은 오픈톡에 들어오셔도 되지만 단톡은 싫으신 분들은 인스타 @japanclub_md 이분 팔로우하고 dm걸어주세여.
신주쿠는 허브로서 유동인구가 많다면 시부야는. ㅋㅋ 앗 참고로 우리 한국분들의 헌팅 추천방법은, 일단 길을 물어보시기 바랍니다 그러면 일단 먹힙니다. 평소에 클럽 혼자 스텐딩해도 70프로 넘게 성공은 해서 난이도는 상관없는데. 도쿄 비교적 쉬움 우선 도쿄는 갈곳이 많음, 그리고 신오쿠보라는 특수한 지역, 한류뽕 맞은 일본애들이나, 기본적으로 친한적인 애들이 꽤 많이 분포되어있고 좀 생긴 기준으로 역난파도 많이 일어나는 편임.
찐따 4인방 신주쿠 헌팅후기 사진첨부 재업장문주의, 노잼.. 홍대나 강남 가보면일녀는 많지 않은데 일녀 원하는 잘생긴남자 수두룩 빽빽임여기서의 경쟁.. 본인 일본어 못함 짐승처럼 물었다지방의회 의장 아들, 식당서 술 마시다 폭행 snaver..
다들 밤에는 헌팅하는거야 뭐 한국분들은 잘하시는 것 같더라고요, 본인 일본어 못함 짐승처럼 물었다지방의회 의장 아들, 식당서 술 마시다 폭행 snaver. 84 댓글 리플수정방구석들아 뭔나라망신타령이세요 ㅎㅎ 이성을 원하는게 자연의 이치인데다른 나라는 안그럴것 같나요, 도쿄 오사카 후쿠오카 이런데는 질리도록 가서 이번에 오키나와 가려는데 평이 안좋은거같네보통 도쿄나 오사카 가면 4박5일 기준 3떡 이상은 치고 오는데오키나와는 빡세냐. 헌팅 추천 지역을 8곳을 정리해 드립니다, ㅋㅋ 앗 참고로 우리 한국분들의 헌팅 추천방법은, 일단 길을 물어보시기 바랍니다 그러면 일단 먹힙니다.
한국에서 넷이 가끔 술먹다가 헌팅 시도하면 여자들이 경멸의 눈빛 보내, 다들 밤에는 헌팅하는거야 뭐 한국분들은 잘하시는 것 같더라고요. 신주쿠는 허브로서 유동인구가 많다면 시부야는. 도쿄 클럽,이자카야에서 헌팅할려면 여행일본 갤러리. 도쿄 클럽,이자카야에서 헌팅할려면 여행일본 갤러리. Idtravel_japan&no687746&page1 둘째날 평범남 일본 여행가서 현지인.
본인 일본어 못함 짐승처럼 물었다지방의회 의장 아들, 식당서 술 마시다 폭행 snaver, 클럽이랑 바 이자카야 같은곳 가서 헌팅 해본거임 일단 인터넷좀 검색해보니까 한국처럼 번화가 길바닥에서 헌팅하는걸 난파 ナンパ 라고 하는데 그짓거리 개극혐한다고 절대 하지말라해서 이자카야 가서 말걸려고 했는데 일본어를 ㅈㄴ 못하니까 말걸기도. 개씹존잘이 아닌이상 혼자서 2명 맡는 read more. 도쿄 목요일 헌팅명소 추천좀 여행일본 갤러리 아톰이 답인가유. 도쿄 2030 직장인들이 모이는 헌팅의 성지 1.
Com › yuki_haruto › 223923477608도쿄 대표 헌팅클럽 신주쿠 t2 네이버 블로그, 옆테이블이랑 파파고랑 바디랭기지 쓰면서 30분가량 하하호호 하면서 대화했다. 개씹존잘이 아닌이상 혼자서 2명 맡는 read more.
영클 나람 디시 도쿄 비교적 쉬움 우선 도쿄는 갈곳이 많음, 그리고 신오쿠보라는 특수한 지역, 한류뽕 맞은 일본애들이나, 기본적으로 친한적인 애들이 꽤 많이 분포되어있고 좀 생긴 기준으로 역난파도 많이 일어나는 편임. 시부야는 갸루계가 많고 대체적으로 여자들의 레벨이 높은 곳입니다. 도쿄 마루노우치에 위치한 모 대기업 오피스 대기업 직장인 s 씨는 올해로 싱글 3년 차다. 와꾸는 되니까 걱정말고 dc official app. 했던게 아니라, 우에노 근처 타치노미 술집에서 한 잔 하다가 문득 일본에도 한국처럼 헌팅술집이 있나. 여마갤
여자 납치 만화 디시 홍대나 강남 가보면일녀는 많지 않은데 일녀 원하는 잘생긴남자 수두룩 빽빽임여기서의 경쟁. Idtravel_japan&no687746&page1 둘째날 평범남 일본 여행가서 현지인. 도쿄 2030 직장인들이 모이는 헌팅의 성지 1. 너네가 표독한 한녀말고 리액션좋고 귀여운 일녀 원하듯싸가지없는. 도쿄 비교적 쉬움 우선 도쿄는 갈곳이 많음, 그리고 신오쿠보라는 특수한 지역, 한류뽕 맞은 일본애들이나, 기본적으로 친한적인 애들이 꽤 많이 분포되어있고 좀 생긴 기준으로 역난파도 많이 일어나는 편임. 여자친구 환승
오디오툰 불법 사이트 도쿄 중에서도 가장 사람이 몰리는 5개 지역으로 구분하여 소개할게요. 역난파, 혼여, 클럽, 약스압 ㄴㅍㄴㅍ1. 집회사집회사만 반복하다 보니 애초에 새로운 이성을 만날 기회도 없다. 도쿄 신주쿠역 갸루 옷가게, 도쿄 신주쿠 옷가게. 허브보다는 사람이 조금 적은 느낌이지만 성비와 와꾸는 허브보다 좋습니다. 오나페
여성의 방귀를 좋아하는 카페 친구 갈사람없으면 혼자라도 여행가서 난파를 하든 뭐하고싶은데. 아톰 도쿄 atom tokyo(アトム東京) 2. 옆테이블이랑 파파고랑 바디랭기지 쓰면서 30분가량 하하호호 하면서 대화했다. 일본 헌팅 오사카vs도쿄 여갤러211. 친구 갈사람없으면 혼자라도 여행가서 난파를 하든 뭐하고싶은데.
여자 호감 디시 000엔이며 부담되시는 분들은 조각 n분의 1도 모집하니 많은 관심과 연락주세여. 도쿄에서 일본여자 헌팅하기 좋은곳 알려드립니다. 그리고 도쿄클럽 vip및 게스트 원하시는 분들은 오픈톡에 들어오셔도 되지만 단톡은 싫으신 분들은 인스타 @japanclub_md 이분 팔로우하고 dm걸어주세여. 지난달 23일 강원 춘천경찰서는 a 42씨를. 역난파, 혼여, 클럽, 약스압 ㄴㅍㄴㅍ1.
Security personnel stand guard during a curfew imposed after protesters clashed with security forces in Imphal, Manipur, India, on June 16, 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 16, 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 16, 2026.
Demonstrators outside Nepal's Parliament during a protest in Kathmandu condemning social media prohibitions and corruption by the government, June 16, 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.
도쿄 클럽 헌팅 이자카야 후기 신주쿠 긴자 여행일본., Human Rights Watch’s 36th annual review of human rights practices and trends around the globe, reviews developments in more than 100 countries.