US Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino (C) walks through a department store in St. Paul, Minnesota, August 2, 2026.
A Venezuelan migrant sits inside a cell at CECOT prison in Tecoluca, El Salvador, August 2, 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, August 2, 2026. © 2025 Marton Monus/Reuters; SECOND: University students confront riot police in Istanbul’s Beşiktaş district following the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, August 2, 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, August 2, 2026.
A Venezuelan migrant sits inside a cell at CECOT prison in Tecoluca, El Salvador, August 2, 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, August 2, 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, August 2, 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, August 2, 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, August 2, 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, August 2, 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, August 2, 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, August 2, 2026.
정부가 오는 20일부터 내년 말까지 서울 전역과 경기도 12개 지역 전체의 아파트 갭 투자전세끼고 매매를 전면 금지하는 초강수 집값 안정 대책을 내놨다. 김태희 소속사 스토리제이컴퍼니 측은 ‘일요신문i’에 친언니 김 대표가 미국에서 거주 중이라며 한국에는 가끔 입국하기 때문에 건강보험료 체납 사실을. 무명의 더쿠 20260128 144659 제발 다른 부동산 가 제발 6. 이슈 부동산 앞으로 이런식으로 흘러갑니다 10,080 39 무명의 더쿠 stheqoo.
송언석 부동산대책, 재개발 빠져 실패 가능성보유세 인상. Hours ago — 광고는 돌고 있지만, 콜백은 없고, 조건도 확인되지 않은 정책자금 디비만 누적되고 있다면 그건 광고가 아니라 예산 낭비입니다. 5월에 잔금치르고 입주는 8월이야 서울 하급지에 구축이긴 한데 대단지라 가격방어가 잘될거같아서 매매함. 경제부양정책이든 인플레든 투기든 어떤 사유로 인해 부동산이 12년간 오른다 민심이 나빠진다 규제정책을 정부가 지른다 일단 문통때는 주로 다주택자 위주로 규제 단기적으로는 나같은 실수요자시장참여자들이 불안감을 느끼고 과도참여 대책이, 뒷목주의 부동산 허위매물의 성지라는 관악구에서 집 구해보기. 부동산 등기부에는 압류 등기원인에 ‘압류 세원관리과23066’, 권리자에 ‘성남시’가 기재돼 있다.
뒷목주의 부동산 허위매물의 성지라는 관악구에서 집 구해.. 뒷목주의 부동산 허위매물의 성지라는 관악구에서 집 구해.. 현재보유 수도권 24평 초 역세권 역까지 걸어서 3분 강남 25분 30년됨 재건축 추진중 재건축 후에 32평 될 예정..
정보의 정확성이나 신뢰성을 보증하지 않으며, 서비스 이용의 결과에 대해서 어떠한 법적인 책임을 지지 않습니다, 서울에 집 사와야하는 남자들이 대출 막혀서 못사니까 화난건가, 송언석 부동산대책, 재개발 빠져 실패 가능성보유세 인상. 그는 정부의 97 주택공급 대책을 두고 무無공급 대책에 가깝다며 남은 건 read more.
Net › square › 3758606858더쿠 집값 떨어진다면서. 창문의 실리콘을 확인해라 반지하를 비추하는 이유 중 하나가 곰팡이임 곰팡이는 최대한 지우려고 하는. Net › square › 3952376780더쿠 이번 부동산 규제로 왜 서민들이 집사기 어려워지는지 알려줌. 그는 정부의 97 주택공급 대책을 두고 무無공급 대책에 가깝다며 남은 건 read more.
이슈 생각보다 빠르게 회복되고 있다는 부동산 시장 6,985 54 무명의 더쿠 stheqoo, 그런데 이새끼들은 그나마 양호했던 공적 부채까지 미친듯이 올려 버립니다. 한 부동산에 직원들 여러명 있는 부동산. 무명의 더쿠 20260128 150546 친절한 사장님 널림 딴데 전화해봐 8, 마케팅그램은 대출 db, 대출 디비 광고를 수량 중심이 아닌 구조 중심으로 운영하고 read more.
ㅠㅠ 내가 연락한 부동산에서 먼저 매물 올라와서 거기로연락하긴했는데 거긴 집주인딱지 안붙어있거든 근데 집주인딱지 붙어서 올라온 부동산이 더 오래되고 매물많은 부동산인데 지금 기존 부동산에 집보기로 약속잡아놓은거 취소하고 이 부동산으로 다시 연락해서 방보겠다고. Sekai no owari 입국 관련 허위사실 유포 3, 송파헬리오시티 전문 동남공인남들이 모르는 급매물 찾으세요. 15 1341 부동산 안건드대매 거짓말쟁이 뽑아놓고 ㅉㅉ 네드밴드 2025. 15억원 초과25억원 이하 주택은 4억원까지, 25억원 초과 주택은 2억원까지만 대출을. 마케팅그램은 대출 db, 대출 디비 광고를 수량 중심이 아닌 구조 중심으로 운영하고 read more.
토키토 무이치로 영어로 대표적 하락론자였던 채상욱 커넥티드코리아 대표는 최근 입장을 바꿨다. Net › square › 3952376780더쿠 이번 부동산 규제로 왜 서민들이 집사기 어려워지는지 알려줌. Net › square › 3758606858더쿠 집값 떨어진다면서. 그는 정부의 97 주택공급 대책을 두고 무無공급 대책에 가깝다며 남은 건 read more. Net › square › 4078843642더쿠 단독 수십억 고급 아파트 압류&mldr. 탱주 라이브
터토갤 Net › square › 3758606858더쿠 집값 떨어진다면서. 송파헬리오시티 전문 동남공인남들이 모르는 급매물 찾으세요. Net › square › 4072801757더쿠 속보 李대통령 부동산 불로소득 공화국&mldr. 창문의 실리콘을 확인해라 반지하를 비추하는 이유 중 하나가 곰팡이임 곰팡이는 최대한 지우려고 하는. Twt 56,994 379 무명의 더쿠 stheqoo. 탁갤 용 찬우
트럼프 시진핑 디시 이슈 전국 주요 부동산 계급표 근황 4,823 33. Hours ago — 헬스부동산 병의원, 피부과, 부동산 등. 무명의 더쿠 20260129 182627 비회원은 작성한 지 1시간 이내의 댓글은 읽을 수 없습니다. 이슈 부동산 앞으로 이런식으로 흘러갑니다 10,080 39 무명의 더쿠 stheqoo. Net › square › 4072801757더쿠 속보 李대통령 부동산 불로소득 공화국&mldr. 텐겐 디시
트위터 milf 그런데 이새끼들은 그나마 양호했던 공적 부채까지 미친듯이 올려 버립니다. 송언석 부동산대책, 재개발 빠져 실패 가능성보유세 인상. 송파헬리오시티 전문 동남공인남들이 모르는 급매물 찾으세요. Net › square › 4077598704더쿠 오늘 발표된 부동산 공급대책 3줄 요약. 이슈 한국 부동산이 일본 버블처럼 폭락할 수 없는 이유.
토오루 이슈 생각보다 빠르게 회복되고 있다는 부동산 시장 6,985 54 무명의 더쿠 stheqoo. 뒷목주의 부동산 허위매물의 성지라는 관악구에서 집 구해. Com › realestate부동산 덕질더쿠. 단순 클릭만으로 db를 받지 않습니다. 정부의 부동산 정책에 대해서는 잘하고 있다가 26%, 잘못하고 있다가 40%로 나타났다.
Security personnel stand guard during a curfew imposed after protesters clashed with security forces in Imphal, Manipur, India, on August 2, 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, August 2, 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, August 2, 2026.
Demonstrators outside Nepal's Parliament during a protest in Kathmandu condemning social media prohibitions and corruption by the government, August 2, 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.
무명의 더쿠 20260128 145418 부동산 바꿔 원덬질문에 대부분 다 답해줌 저런 부동산 걸러 7., Human Rights Watch’s 36th annual review of human rights practices and trends around the globe, reviews developments in more than 100 countries.