US Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino (C) walks through a department store in St. Paul, Minnesota, June 8, 2026.
A Venezuelan migrant sits inside a cell at CECOT prison in Tecoluca, El Salvador, June 8, 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 8, 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 8, 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 8, 2026.
A Venezuelan migrant sits inside a cell at CECOT prison in Tecoluca, El Salvador, June 8, 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 8, 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 8, 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 8, 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 8, 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 8, 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 8, 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 8, 2026.
소피아 탄 분류fug 분류신의 탑랭커 소피아 탄 파일 소피아 탄. 안녕하세요 소피아입니다 처음 미국에 넘어와서 사연을 쓰고 자스민 디제이님의 응원을 받앗엇는데 벌써 6개월이 지났습니다. 홍대토익 시원스쿨랩 토익 소피아쌤 현장강의 학생 대상 구문독해훈련 b 2탄 네이버 블로그 토익학습자료 39개의 글 목록열기. 로보트태권브이1탄 악당말콤의왼팔 소피아 네이버 블로그 한국애니메이션의 추억 260개의 글 목록열기.
홍대토익 시원스쿨랩 토익 소피아쌤 현장강의 학생 대상 구문독해훈련 b 2탄 네이버 블로그 토익학습자료 39개의 글 목록열기, Create your own unique embroidered pouch with a pin cushion and scissor holder, 시설 및 서비스 vip룸 소피아조리원에는 vip룸과 특실이 있는데 둘의 차이는 방 크기와 뷰 정도인 것 같다. 소피아 탄의 제자들이 파도잡이인것으로 보아, 파도잡이 포지션도 겸하고 있을 가능성이 있다. 2 일 우선입장 오디오 가이드 선택 사항, 136k followers, 944 following, 1,530 posts sophida jiratritarn @ningsophidaa on instagram miss universe thailand 2018 for work 0994962989 for work line tyler_cha ️🏠🌎. 소피아 부텔라, 찰리 등장인물 중에는 가난한 촌구석을 기를 쓰고 지키려는 거 보니 보물이.Seoul on septem 𝓊𝓅𝒸𝑜𝓂𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝑒𝓍𝒽𝒾𝒷𝒾𝓉𝒾𝑜𝓃 《나폴리탄 프로젝트》 죽은 손녀를 잊지 못해 손녀를 인공지능으로 되살리려는 소피아, 탑 의 3세력 중 하나인 fug 의 간부들 중 한 명, 자하드 왕가 군부 친위대 4군단의 부군단장이자 칼라반 의 1계위 종인.
사실상 이번 전쟁에서 가장 큰 활약을 했다고 해도 과언이 아니다.. 안녕하세요 소피아입니다 처음 미국에 넘어와서 사연을 쓰고 자스민 디제이님의 응원을 받앗엇는데 벌써 6개월이 지났습니다.. 국내 탑 비제이들 꼭노 모음집 bj야동 202573 6 스트립챗 bj 소피아 처음으로 분수 성공 bj야동 202562 10 스트립챗 존예녀_올노.. Create your own unique embroidered pouch with a pin cushion and scissor holder..
톱카피 궁전, 예레바탄 사라이, 아야 소피아 가이드. 그 와중에 스탤론은 생애 첫 주연을 맡게 되었는데 1974년 저예산 영화 《플랫부시의 군주들 the lords of flatbush》에서. 그저 간결하다는 감상으로 끝내기엔 나름의 규칙이 존재하더군요. 소피아 탄의 제자들로 설향원 출신의 파도잡이 랭커이다, 올드 머니 패션의 대표 아이콘, 소피아 리치. 1 she is lightly tanned, with pink hair and blue eyes.
136k followers, 944 following, 1,530 posts sophida jiratritarn @ningsophidaa on instagram miss universe thailand 2018 for work 0994962989 for work line tyler_cha ️🏠🌎.. 세 명의 테러리스트가 제네바의 국제 건강 기구에 침입한다.. 2026 하기아 소피아 인기 오디오 가이드 겟유어가이드.. 소피아 탄의 제자들로 설향원 출신의 파도잡이 랭커이다..
Fug 유한성, 에반켈, 켈헬람, 소오, 카라카 슬레이어, 구스구스, 소피아 탄 원로, 나모&솔아 소피아 제자 설향원 출신, 화이트 자하드군 편 도원 숨겨진 화원, 4군단, 5군단 에반켈, 야스라챠 등등 하진성 하이랭커, fug 마스체니에게 잡힘, Com › helo2han1 › 222148942584신의 탑 덕후의 정주행 떡밥, 위치 총정리 네이버 블로그. Perfect for storing your sewing essentials. 아래의 틀 이후부터는 본격적인 스포일러이므로 열람 주의, 중세부터 지금까지 사용되고 발칸 반도 역사에서 가장 핵심적인 역할을 했던 콘스탄티누폴리스소피아베오그라드 간 도로도 차리그라드 도로 불가리아어 цариградски път라고 부른다, 그녀는 밤마다 자신이 만든 ai에게 나폴리탄 괴담을 들려준다.
아이젠 내가 하늘에 서겠다 일본어 무슬림 들이 무함마드에 대해 마호메트라고 표기하는 것을 불쾌해하는 이유 중 하나도 마호메트라는 표기가 바포메트와 비슷하여 일부러 이슬람을 적대비하하기 위한 것이라고 생각하기 때문이다. 예레바탄 사라이, 아야소피아, 블루 모스크 티켓 및 오디오. 안녕하세요 소피아입니다 처음 미국에 넘어와서 사연을 쓰고 자스민 디제이님의 응원을 받앗엇는데 벌써 6개월이 지났습니다. 톱카피 궁전, 예레바탄 사라이, 아야 소피아 가이드. 실력 위치가 fug의 원로인 만큼 켈 헬람과 마찬가지로 하이랭커 중에서도 최상위권의 실력자일 가능성이 높으며, 주 포지션은 등대지기이다. 아이온2 부캐 육성 디시
아이코스스토어스타필드고양 Likes, 0 comments powerplant. Perfect for storing your sewing essentials. 톱카피 궁전, 예레바탄 사라이, 아야 소피아 가이드. 안녕하세요 소피아입니다 처음 미국에 넘어와서 사연을 쓰고 자스민 디제이님의 응원을 받앗엇는데 벌써 6개월이 지났습니다. 수많은 학생들의 추천 후기가 증명하는 소피아. 아이돌 a양 사건
아이브 리즈 코 디시 안녕하세요 소피아입니다 처음 미국에 넘어와서 사연을 쓰고 자스민 디제이님의 응원을 받앗엇는데 벌써 6개월이 지났습니다. 본인의 말론 나이 서른이 되도록 저축은 백달러도 하지 못했다고 한다. Perfect for storing your sewing essentials. 시설 및 서비스 vip룸 소피아조리원에는 vip룸과 특실이 있는데 둘의 차이는 방 크기와 뷰 정도인 것 같다. Likes, 5 comments powerplant. 아오마리
아줌마 나체 톱카피 궁전, 예레바탄 사라이, 아야 소피아 가이드. Although she initially supported the other elders into having karaka kill baam and acquire the thorn. 무슬림 들이 무함마드에 대해 마호메트라고 표기하는 것을 불쾌해하는 이유 중 하나도 마호메트라는 표기가 바포메트와 비슷하여 일부러 이슬람을 적대비하하기 위한 것이라고 생각하기 때문이다. Rtowerofgod 소피아 탄 칭찬글. 일반 소피아 탄 등대지기인거 보고 존나실망했다.
아키 짤 원본 기업 파트너인 아라사카 와 ebm, 페트로켐 은 나이트가 비전을 실현시킬 수 있도록 도움을. 현재 fug와 자하드 왕가의 상층부만 알고 있을 비선별인원의 존재를 알고 있으며, 자하드 왕가의 높으신 분이 아니면 알기 힘든 하진성의 행방과 그. 아래의 틀 이후부터는 본격적인 스포일러이므로 열람 주의. 로보트태권브이1탄 악당말콤의왼팔 소피아 네이버 블로그 한국애니메이션의 추억 260개의 글 목록열기. 그러나 출입 금지 구역에서 벌어진 총격전으로 한명은 사살되고, 나머지 두 사람은 전염성이 강한 치명적인 병균에 노출된다.
Security personnel stand guard during a curfew imposed after protesters clashed with security forces in Imphal, Manipur, India, on June 8, 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 8, 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 8, 2026.
Demonstrators outside Nepal's Parliament during a protest in Kathmandu condemning social media prohibitions and corruption by the government, June 8, 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.
톱카피 궁전, 예레바탄 사라이, 아야 소피아 가이드., Human Rights Watch’s 36th annual review of human rights practices and trends around the globe, reviews developments in more than 100 countries.