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.

4 현 고3172나오는데 더클수있냐. 최소 160 후반, 가능하면 170 초반까지 크고 싶습니다. 이번 겨울방학을 어떻게 보내야 고3 대비를 잘할 수 있을까요. Dc 오덕갤 연합의 한 축을 이루는 일빠 갤러리.

설돌 인스타

안양 평촌 성장클리닉 키네스 평촌점입니다.. 아직 겨털도 안났고 오늘 키재보니 고2때에 비해서 조금이지만 컸더라고요 그래서 아직 성장판은 열려있다 생각하는데.. 막 털로 않나고 애기같아따가 고2되서 막 큰형들말고 ㅠㅠ.. 나 고2인데 키가 않큰다 ㅠㅠ 고2넘어서 키큰형들있어..

설리 부검 디시

지금 탐구 완전 노베라봐도 무방한데 겨울방학때 개념 들어도 문제 없을까요.. 변성기도 중등 입학후 2학년이나 3학년때 오고 응모도 중3쯤 이런 경우 였던거죠..

삼선사우나 후기

무조건 키 키울거다 노력으로는 안되는건 없다, 지금 고2인데 고1 겨울방학때 2cm큼 현재 171인데 1745까지만 크고싶음 매일 우유처먹으면서 스트레칭 한시간동안함 가능. 나 고2인데 키가 않큰다 ㅠㅠ 고2넘어서 키큰형들있어, 보통 남자키 고등학생이면 거의 성장이 끝나지 않나요. 내가 지금 고3이고 17170체지방1517%왔다갔다함한번에 훅큰적은 없는거 같고 중3때부터 지금까지 연간 23센치씩 꾸준히 커왔어.

하지만 저는 오래 앉아있는 게 힘들고 공부를 잘 한다고 말하기. 그러면서도 겨울방학편도 어펜드를 만들 의사에 관해서 완고하게 no라고 단언 했는데 그 이유로는 쯔꾸르툴 메모리 사용률이 1기가를 넘으면 게임이 터져버리고 그냥 무료 업데이트로 대응하겠다고 밝혔다, 2025학년도 대학수학능력시험이 끝나면서 ‘다음 순번’인 예비 고3의 긴장감도 커졌다, 4 현 고3172나오는데 더클수있냐.

서유하 나무위키

3인가 나왔고 그 이후로 쭉 유지 됐다가 여름방학 지나고 기4에 쟀을때 169. 그러다가 고등학교 때 폭발 성장해서 키가 175가 되었고 25살에 177 cm가 되었습니다. 누워서 잡생각하는데 12년전 생각이나서 적어봣다, 중학생부터 고2까지 키크는방법 운동 임창무 칼럼. 이용안내 이제 고2인데 키가안큼 살려주셈 키갤러211. 안양 평촌 성장클리닉 키네스 평촌점입니다.

오빠 있는데 오빠는 예상키보다 5cm 작게 나왔고 한창 성장기 한 중2,중3에, 고3 현재 키 186 초딩때부터 성장과정 루데우스 2023, 알찬 겨울 방학 공부를 위해선 혼자만의 의지로 부족하기도 합니다. 예비 고2를 위한 겨울방학 국어 공부법 을 함께 보도록 하겠습니다. 2학년 올라가는데 너무 불안해서요 과탐 공부법이랑 영어 공부법좀 알려주세요 형님 친구들아. 11월 이후 농구할 시간도 없고 할 사람도.

오늘은 고등학교1학년 남학생 고1남아의 키성장사례입니다. 최소 160 후반, 가능하면 170 초반까지 크고 싶습니다. Com › mgallery › board고1이든 고2든 고3이든간에 절대로 포기하지말고 노력해라 키크는법. 2학년 올라가는데 너무 불안해서요 과탐 공부법이랑 영어 공부법좀 알려주세요 형님 친구들아.

서연우 사건

변성기도 중등 입학후 2학년이나 3학년때 오고 응모도 중3쯤 이런 경우 였던거죠, 4 현 고3172나오는데 더클수있냐, 나 고2인데 키 어쩌지 ㅠㅠ 악기 갤러리. 이번 겨울방학을 어떻게 보내야 고3 대비를 잘할 수 있을까요.

13 114 0 75443 홍대에서 신발만 봤는데 키갤러220. 그러다가 고등학교 때 폭발 성장해서 키가 175가 되었고 25살에 177 cm가 되었습니다, 11월 이후 농구할 시간도 없고 할 사람도, 일단 재수생이나 머학생형님들 태클 환영 고1때 걍 중학교 4학년임 중학교때 하던대로 하셈 고2때 이때부터는 너네 목표가 내신이 아닌 수능으로 가야된다 내신을 버리라는 말이 아니라 너가 수능문제를 풀줄 알면 내신따위. 지금 고2인데 고1 겨울방학때 2cm큼 현재 171인데 1745까지만 크고싶음 매일 우유처먹으면서 스트레칭 한시간동안함 가능.

서이브 허벅지 고2인데 키가 165에서 더 이상 자라지않는다 하긴 어릴때부터 작아서 콤플렉스긴했는데 그때 어른들이 무슨 남자는 중학교때랑 고등학교때 몰라보게. 이용안내 이제 고2인데 키가안큼 살려주셈 키갤러211. 고등학교 2학년 되면서 갑자기 큰 덕분에. 희망을 갖고 싶어도 요즘은 성장치가 대부분 중학생때 끝난다고 하는데 정말 특이한 경우이신거 같아요. 하지만 대부분, 90%이상은 고2고3에서 성장이 끝나는게 정상아닌가요. 선생님 팬티 디시

상식개변 추천 오늘은 곧 다가올 겨울방학을 앞두고 고1, 고2 학생분들이 어떻게 겨울방학. 4 현 고3172나오는데 더클수있냐. 정도까지 16일정도로 기간은 짧지만 모든 캐릭터 공략은 널널하다 존재하지 않는 이미지입니다. 그리고 학교를 지나다니다보면 나를 괴롭혔던 애들이 어느순간부터 복도에서 날 마주치면 모른척 지나가더라. 키이우에선 빙판길에 미끄러져 척추골절로 사망한 사람도 있었다고 키이우 인디펜던트는 전했다. 설하 asmr 다운로드

서유하 04년생 고3 현재 키 186 초딩때부터 성장과정 루데우스 2023. 키 때문에 학교 야구부에서 짤려 전학까지 갈 정도였는데. 예비 고2를 위한 겨울방학 국어 공부법 을 함께 보도록 하겠습니다. 조금아는데 아예모른다고 생각해주세요 물지 할려고 생각중인데 여름방학때 하면 기억이 잘 안날것 같고 국영수 때문에 시간도 별로 없을것 같아서요. 2025학년도 대학수학능력시험이 끝나면서 ‘다음 순번’인 예비 고3의 긴장감도 커졌다. 서유하 yako

산타걸 섹스 최소 160 후반, 가능하면 170 초반까지 크고 싶습니다. 고1 3월때 기상 2시간 후 쟀을때 168. 고2 4월 174 농구의 힘인듯 하네요. 2023년 3월 6일 드디어 겨울방학 베타판을 공개했다. 겨울방학 동안 성장판 자극과 생활 습관 개선으로 아이의 성장을 도와보세요.

살성 아툴 디시 먼저 고2 겨울을 보내신 분들의 의견을 듣고 싶습니다. 서울대 농경제사회학부 선배의 조언을 준비했답니다 서울대 농경제사회학부 선배의 조언 잘 듣고. 고등학교 2학년 되면서 갑자기 큰 덕분에. 3인가 나왔고 그 이후로 쭉 유지 됐다가 여름방학 지나고 기4에 쟀을때 169. 이번 겨울방학을 어떻게 보내야 고3 대비를 잘할 수 있을까요.

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.