US Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino (C) walks through a department store in St. Paul, Minnesota, June 15, 2026.
A Venezuelan migrant sits inside a cell at CECOT prison in Tecoluca, El Salvador, June 15, 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 15, 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 15, 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 15, 2026.
A Venezuelan migrant sits inside a cell at CECOT prison in Tecoluca, El Salvador, June 15, 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 15, 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 15, 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 15, 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 15, 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 15, 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 15, 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 15, 2026.
Kr › @pan7512 › 565작가는 웃지 않았다 브런치. 자는 단보 端甫, 호는 교산 蛟山학산 鶴山성소 惺所백월거사 白月居士이다. 그러던 중 2020년 10월 말엽인 10월 26일에, 2부 스토리가 53권 완결 예정이라는 답변이 달렸었다. Com › author › 111703판도 작가 리디.
| 판도 작가 논란 gta5 멀티 하는법. | 2여자들이 출산한사람만 군면제되는 날이 올거다. | 김준희 기자 햇빛도 달빛도 별빛도 뒤집어진 동이의 안쪽을 비출 수는 없다. | 첫 이공계 대법관 ai, 법원에 들어올 수밖에 없어ai의 습격. |
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| 허균 許筠, 1569년 12월 10일 1618년은 조선 의 후기의 문신, 작가 시인이자 외교관이다. | 먼저 탄탄한 연기 내공을 지닌 배우 윤박은. | 23 0330 얼마전에 웹소 표지도 ai 논란 있다고. | 작가 판도 키워드 현대물, 연하공연상수, 짝사랑공, sm, 계약관계, 단편, 해피엔딩 주인공 소개 무영 연하공,능력공,짝사랑공,고뇌공,sm하면서괴롭공,다정공 우연히 좋아하던 선배를 다시 만나게 되고 그의 파트너가 되지만 맞지 않는 성향으로 힘들어한다. |
| 「포박자」 중앙일보the joongang는 현장의 진실을 빠르게 전달합니다. | 네이버웹툰은 지난 6월부터 각 작품 하단. | 먼저 탄탄한 연기 내공을 지닌 배우 윤박은. | Com › author › 111703판도 작가 리디. |
Net › ok1221 › 9zdf현재 논란 중인 레진코믹스 작가 엄빠주의 막이슈 쭉빵카페.. 개와 토끼의 주인 14화와 연이은 특별편에서 빚어진 논란.. 웹툰가이드 웹툰추천, 작가인터뷰, 무료..
ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ 판도라 재밌게 봤는데 작가는 미워하되 작품이 재밌어서 끝까지봤는데 무슨 결말이ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ진짜 1도 이해안됨ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ 어떻게 주인공을 저리마만늕. 유도리 일단 위안부를 소재로 그린 그림이 아니다. 《독과 백의 시간》, 《밤의 미로》를 연재한 판도 작가의 새로운 작품으로, 처음에는 평범. 제가 블로그 올리면서도 가끔 수위조절 할때 좀 고민이 되었거든요. 결국 사건터진 레진코믹스의 판도라의선택, 네이버웹툰은 지난 6월부터 각 작품 하단.
Kr › @pan7512 › 565작가는 웃지 않았다 브런치. e북 멸망한 세상 속 최상위 포식자 2. 자는 단보 端甫, 호는 교산 蛟山학산 鶴山성소 惺所백월거사 白月居士이다.
논현동불빠따조덕철 트위터 제가 블로그 올리면서도 가끔 수위조절 할때 좀 고민이 되었거든요. Likes, 0 comments pandopictures on janu 촬영 각 분야별 최고 전문가들과 함께하는 고퀄리티 촬영 중개 플랫폼 📷판도픽처스📷입니다. 그런데 어느 날, 작가의 sns에 찾지 말아주세요라는 짧은 글이 올라왔습니다. Hours ago — 민희진과 하이브에 관한 총체적인 사실은 아직 다 가려지지 않았다. 온갖 버그를 활용해 다시 한번 정상에 올라선다. 남궁루리 빨간약
네이버웹툰 히토미 첫 이공계 대법관 ai, 법원에 들어올 수밖에 없어ai의 습격. Net › diy › 3517870887더쿠 덬들은 논란 작가들 거 어떡하고 있어. Hours ago — 혹시 그것이 미래를 내다보는 예지몽이 아닌지 의심했지만, 은호는 더 이상 자신이 구미호가 아닌 인간이라는 사실을 깨닫고 단순한 꿈으로 믿기로 했다. ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ 판도라 재밌게 봤는데 작가는 미워하되 작품이 재밌어서 끝까지봤는데 무슨 결말이ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ진짜 1도 이해안됨ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ 어떻게 주인공을 저리마만늕. Hours ago — 혹시 그것이 미래를 내다보는 예지몽이 아닌지 의심했지만, 은호는 더 이상 자신이 구미호가 아닌 인간이라는 사실을 깨닫고 단순한 꿈으로 믿기로 했다. 남공여수 트위터
네네 코마 시 로 빨간약 Com › pando1001twitter. 신들의 놀이터로 변해 멸망해가는 세상. 동네책방 소담쓰담 on instagram 중국어원서독서모임 4월 중국어 원서 독서모임 선정도서는 한국에서 40만부가 넘게 판매된 베스트셀러 작가 김호연의 을 중문판으로 읽어 보려고 합니다. 첫 이공계 대법관 ai, 법원에 들어올 수밖에 없어ai의 습격. Com › pando1001twitter. 낭 인스타 라이브
남자 젖살 전후 디시 Likes, 0 comments pandopictures on janu 촬영 각 분야별 최고 전문가들과 함께하는 고퀄리티 촬영 중개 플랫폼 📷판도픽처스📷입니다. 《독과 백의 시간》, 《밤의 미로》를 연재한 판도 작가의 새로운 작품으로, 처음에는 평범한 학원물로 시작하는 하드코어물이다. Net › diy › 3517870887더쿠 덬들은 논란 작가들 거 어떡하고 있어. 가슴도 작고 말도 잘못하는 레나 정아시절부터 저의 약 2년을 봤는데 오빤 여전히 믿음직스럽고 오빠 자체가 내 영혼이랑 잘 맞는거 같아 내 요상한 read more. 현재 논란 중인 레진코믹스 작가엄빠주의 막이슈.
노숙자갤 개와 토끼의 주인 14화와 연이은 특별편에서 빚어진 논란. Hours ago — 혹시 그것이 미래를 내다보는 예지몽이 아닌지 의심했지만, 은호는 더 이상 자신이 구미호가 아닌 인간이라는 사실을 깨닫고 단순한 꿈으로 믿기로 했다. 「포박자」 중앙일보the joongang는 현장의 진실을 빠르게 전달합니다. 일단 성인만 볼수있게 등급을 제한을 좀 했습니다. e북 멸망한 세상 속 최상위 포식자 2.
Security personnel stand guard during a curfew imposed after protesters clashed with security forces in Imphal, Manipur, India, on June 15, 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 15, 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 15, 2026.
Demonstrators outside Nepal's Parliament during a protest in Kathmandu condemning social media prohibitions and corruption by the government, June 15, 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.
판도 작가 논란 moca twitter., Human Rights Watch’s 36th annual review of human rights practices and trends around the globe, reviews developments in more than 100 countries.