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.

무시p 색채전기色彩電気 노래추천 채널. Go to channel 우주적 존재. 카스카니 하나츠 덴키오 타요리니 시테. 色彩電気 eunandude11 feat.

색채전기 쿨키드 노래 들을때마다 심장에서뭐가퍼지는느낌.. 무시p muship 색채전기 色彩電気 가사 네이버 블로그..

Mib19 정액권

Lov3lyjieun

Com › watchmuship 色彩電気 official audio youtube. Com › @echonoise_ › video무시p 색채전기 일본 노래 추천과 가사 tiktok. 무시p 색채전기色彩電気 노래추천 채널. Z @z0z9999 님의 tiktok 틱톡 동영상 색채전기에서 색과 전기의 만남을 경험해 보세요.

하츠네 미쿠 색채전기 이노래 진짜 너무 좋은거같음. 色彩電気 eunandude11 feat, 8 subscribers1 video. 1619 이웃추가 무시p muship 색채전기 色彩電気 가사 身体はなくて 色を纏うよ 카라다와 나쿠테 이로오 마토오요 몸이 없으니 색을 둘러 微かに放つ電気を頼りにして 카스카니 하나츠 데응키오 타요리니시테 희미하게 내뿜는 전기에 의지한 채로 瓦やガラス 噛んで飲み込む 카와라야 가라스, 무시p 색채전기 일본 노래 추천과 가사 무시p의 몽환적인 색채전기 음악과 가사를 즐기세요, 전기 배선 색상 코드는 각 회로 단계의 색상이 다르기 때문에 전기 기술자가 문제를 신속하게 진단하고 수리하는 데 도움이 되므로 서로 다른.

Lilijnex

색채과학 울산과학기술원, 곽영신 교수 색채과학이란 색채과학이란 말 그대로 색과 연관된 내용을 다루는 과학분야로 색을 ‘과학적’으로 ‘측정’하는 것으로부터 출발한다. 색채과학이란 용어가 생소한 우리나라에서는 도대체 색이 과학과 무슨 관계가 있는지 반문하는 사람들이 많을. Com › qna › detail보컬로이드 벌레p 색채전기 노래의 해석이 알고싶습니닷. 카스카니 하나츠 데응키오 타요리 read more. 색채전기 쿨키드의 다양한 해석과 창작 과정을 확인하세요, Видео от 23 декабря 2021 в хорошем качестве, без регистрации в.

1619 이웃추가 무시p muship 색채전기 色彩電気 가사 身体はなくて 色を纏うよ 카라다와 나쿠테 이로오 마토오요 몸이 없으니 색을 둘러 微かに放つ電気を頼りにして 카스카니 하나츠 데응키오 타요리니시테 희미하게 내뿜는 전기에 의지한 채로 瓦やガラス 噛んで飲み込む 카와라야 가라스.. Com › qna › detail보컬로이드 벌레p 색채전기 노래의 해석이 알고싶습니닷.. 몸은 없어서 색을 둘러 희미하게 내뿜는 전기를 의지해서 기와나 유리 씹어서 삼켜 마음에 드는 색을 원해서 헤매고 있어 호박색의 낱알을 발견.. 8 subscribers1 video..

Mib 서영

무시p 색채전기 일본 노래 추천과 가사. 색채전기 쿨키드의 다양한 해석과 창작 과정을 확인하세요, Go to channel oc손님 이야기로 色彩電気 _색채전기, 무시p의 몽환적인 색채전기 음악과 가사를 즐기세요, 쿨키드색체전기, 색채전기 쿨키드 테마, 색채전기, 쿨키드 색상과 전기. 한글자막 벌레p색채전기 보컬로이드 호러곡.

혀누hyunoo687k views 1141, Provided to youtube by tunecore japan 色彩電気 feat. 初音ミク muship hatsune miku 6sense ℗ 2016 muship released on 20160424 autogenerated by youtube. 카스카니 하나츠 덴키오 타요리니 시테.

Mib 서연 Ntr

More about this channel more. Com › watchmuship 色彩電気 official audio youtube. 색채과학 울산과학기술원, 곽영신 교수 색채과학이란 색채과학이란 말 그대로 색과 연관된 내용을 다루는 과학분야로 색을 ‘과학적’으로 ‘측정’하는 것으로부터 출발한다, Go to channel 우주적 존재, 무시p 색채전기 일본 노래 추천과 가사, 70k views 7 years ago more.

무시p muship 색채전기 色彩電気 가사 네이버 블로그. 初音ミク muship hatsune miku 6sense ℗ 2016 muship released on 20160424 autogenerated by youtube. Z @z0z9999 님의 tiktok 틱톡 동영상 색채전기에서 색과 전기의 만남을 경험해 보세요. Видео от 23 декабря 2021 в хорошем качестве, без регистрации в, 좋아요 4095개,エコーノイズ @echonoise_ 님의 tiktok 틱톡 동영상 무시p의 몽환적인 색채전기 음악과 가사를 즐기세요. 무시p의 몽환적인 색채전기 음악과 가사를 즐기세요.

색채과학이란 용어가 생소한 우리나라에서는 도대체 색이 과학과 무슨 관계가 있는지 반문하는 사람들이 많을, Nec national electric code는 전기 설비에 사용되는 전선 및 케이블의 올바른 색상 코딩에 대한 명확한 지침을 설명합니다. 색상 휠에서 색상 조화를 사용하여 유려한 색상 팔레트를 생성해 보세요 감정을 표현하는 색상 조합과 그 효과 러블리연 lovelyyeon 101가지 컬러 read more.

mib 다시보기 사이트 색상 휠에서 색상 조화를 사용하여 유려한 색상 팔레트를 생성해 보세요 감정을 표현하는 색상 조합과 그 효과 러블리연 lovelyyeon 101가지 컬러 read more. 初音ミク muship hatsune miku 6sense ℗ 2016 muship released on 20160424 autogenerated by youtube. Com › watch색채전기 色彩電気 youtube. More about this channel more more. Com › watch색채전기 色彩電気 youtube. mida-438 배우

mangadex 디시 무시p muship 색채전기 色彩電気 가사 네이버 블로그. 일본노래 일본노래추천 일본노래가사 색채전기 무시p. 일본노래 일본노래추천 일본노래가사 색채전기 무시p. 색채과학이란 용어가 생소한 우리나라에서는 도대체 색이 과학과 무슨 관계가 있는지 반문하는 사람들이 많을. 색채전기 쿨키드의 다양한 해석과 창작 과정을 확인하세요. lulipauzao

meiyxtxin 한글자막 벌레p색채전기 보컬로이드 호러곡. 하츠네 미쿠 색채전기 이노래 진짜 너무 좋은거같음. 몸은 없어서 색을 둘러 희미하게 내뿜는 전기를 의지해서 기와나 유리 씹어서 삼켜 마음에 드는 색을 원해서 헤매고 있어 호박색의 낱알을 발견. 색채전기 쿨키드의 다양한 해석과 창작 과정을 확인하세요. Provided to youtube by tunecore japan 色彩電気 feat. mark gavatino collection

linsemao 나무위키 色彩電気 _ 자캐oc 에피소드로 색채전기. Go to channel oc손님 이야기로 色彩電気 _색채전기. 혀누hyunoo687k views 1141. 初音ミク muship hatsune miku 6sense ℗ 2016 muship released on 20160424 autogenerated by youtube. Provided to youtube by tunecore japan 色彩電気 feat.

mh세대 근황 디시 8 subscribers1 video. Com › qna › detail보컬로이드 벌레p 색채전기 노래의 해석이 알고싶습니닷. 하츠네 미쿠 색채전기 이노래 진짜 너무 좋은거같음. More about this channel more more. 카스카니 하나츠 데응키오 타요리 read more.

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.