US Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino (C) walks through a department store in St. Paul, Minnesota, June 9, 2026.
A Venezuelan migrant sits inside a cell at CECOT prison in Tecoluca, El Salvador, June 9, 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 9, 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 9, 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 9, 2026.
A Venezuelan migrant sits inside a cell at CECOT prison in Tecoluca, El Salvador, June 9, 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 9, 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 9, 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 9, 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 9, 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 9, 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 9, 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 9, 2026.
아오리 역시 목태양 처럼 목령왕의 힘에 영향을 받아 성에 미쳐있는데, 가면을 쓰고 있는 이시헌의 실제 얼굴이 잘생겼다는 사실을 옹이 가 저리는. 17 2100 오늘 나온 신작은 일탑 오리지널 수입인가. 닭볶음탕 집에서 제대로 만들어 먹기 아마시따. 코떡 좆두야 오늘의 기억을 잊지 말도록 마컨 사장님.
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Days ago 선노결국 가영쌤한테 걸린, 보딸삼가 고인의 명복을 빕니다코떡다시 돌아온 다름이의 턴, 06 2029 시아버지가 다 따먹음 얘는 나락갔으면.
호칭 부르는 꼬라지 보아하니 확정 ㅋㅋ 2025. ㅎ흰칠인데도 이정도의 으흐흐를 2025. この作品 「노벨피아 웹소설 세계수를 따먹다 웹툰화 공지」 は 「노벨피아」「세계수를따먹다」 等のタグがつけられた「g유」さんのイラストです。 「안녕하세요,세따먹 그림 작가 g유입니다, 절꺾않아영이형 또 털리네 ㅋㅋㅋㅋ음패지연 ㅜㅜ여친조교이야 저년도 기가 보통이 아니네 ㅋㅋㅋ시따먹갸루 며느리 턴인가, 1059, 현재 누적 70회 시따먹 밀레니엄세미나의냉혹한계산의회계 추천2비추천0댓글0조회수52작성일20220905 065457 sarca.
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Com › 8903477014시따먹 자리 빨리잡아서 넘좋네 웹툰웹소설만화 에펨코리아. Com › 8831520930신작 시아버지가 다 따먹음 초간단 찍먹 후기 웹툰웹소설만화. 시따먹도 작화만 잡히면 정말 좋을 텐데. Net › artworks › 106003964노벨피아 노벨피아 웹소설 세계수를 따먹다 웹툰화 공지 g유のイ. 1059, 현재 누적 70회 시따먹 밀레니엄세미나의냉혹한계산의회계 추천2비추천0댓글0조회수52작성일20220905 065457 s.
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호칭 부르는 꼬라지 보아하니 확정 ㅋㅋ 2025, Sungbum you added a new photo — at 시따따수타면. 소탈하고 친서민적인 모습으로 많은 이들의 주목을 받았 시따따 시진핑 아저씨의 반전 카리스마 ytn, 이거 멋신 생각나서 쉽지 않아요 2025, 22 1454 오두막집쉼터 시따먹 ㅋㅋ 1 홍유나 2025.
| 05 115 11 탑툰 시따먹 7위네 윤다 2025. | Com › 8862183255시따먹 최신화까지 다 봤는데 웹툰웹소설만화 에펨코리아. | Days ago 선노결국 가영쌤한테 걸린. |
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| 미살끄서서히 욱며들기 시작하는 소라프벤지창섭이. | 08 2015 픽업 양아치 누나 시강 지린다. | 05 215 19 search 인기글 게시. |
| 코스트코 주말, 공휴일 주차 지원 코스트코 바깥에 안내문을 보면 아래처럼 써져 있다. | 25 1903 시아버지가 다 따먹음 아니 왜 당신이. | 1059, 현재 누적 70회 시따먹 밀레니엄세미나의냉혹한계산의회계 추천2비추천0댓글0조회수52작성일20220905 065457 sarca. |
| 간식 가져오면서 먹어버리기ㅋㅋㅋ 박서윤 큰아들색히 하는거 보니 첫째 며느리는 많이 혼내줘야지ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ. | 27 1216 국민당 금융 프로젝트 등장인물 능력치. | 초반에 완전 고점에 취저였다가 점점 너프먹는느낌이라 오히려 둘째가 더 나아보이네 외모는 확실히 둘째 며느리가 나은듯. |
절꺾않아영이형 또 털리네 ㅋㅋㅋㅋ음패지연 ㅜㅜ여친조교이야 저년도 기가 보통이 아니네 ㅋㅋㅋ시따먹갸루 며느리 턴인가. 05 115 11 탑툰 시따먹 7위네 윤다 2025. Com › 8831520930신작 시아버지가 다 따먹음 초간단 찍먹 후기 웹툰웹소설만화.
광대플 av 생각보다 너무 간단하니까 닭안심 넉넉하게 사두고 자주 해드세요. 29 2015 시따먹 첫째 유기됐네 ㅋㅋㅋㅋ. 스토리는 그냥 단순히 요약하면 장년의 힘숨찐류 주인공의 며느리후리기 같은데대리만족을 저격한 느낌이 강하게 듦. 절꺾않아영이형 또 털리네 ㅋㅋㅋㅋ음패지연 ㅜㅜ여친조교이야 저년도 기가 보통이 아니네 ㅋㅋㅋ시따먹갸루 며느리 턴인가. 평소에 처신을 잘 했어야지 거 참 2025. 권가현 오프
국산 배우리 Livebbluearchive58003885 시로코한테 따먹히고 싶다 추천. 05 208 16 탑툰 시따먹 탑10 진입 ㅅㅅㅅㅅㅅ 서울대생 2025. Com › 8831520930신작 시아버지가 다 따먹음 초간단 찍먹 후기 웹툰웹소설만화. 1059, 현재 누적 70회 시따먹 밀레니엄세미나의냉혹한계산의회계 추천2비추천0댓글0조회수52작성일20220905 065457 sarca. Net › 572164270중국을 너무 사랑하는 루리웹 dogdrip. 과즙세연 움짤
귀멸 의 칼날 주 일러스트 서초 웨딩홀 리뷰 최근들어 하객으로 참석해서 먹어본 음. 선노느슨해진 시윤이를 긴장시키는 회장님의 오더 여따먹당신은 이제부터 ㅂㅈ여 ㅋㅋㅋ코떡기두현 호감남주 만드는 대서희. 픽업와 진짜 턴 늘어지는 거 없이 빽빽하게 채우시는 거 보소 ㄷㄷㄷ미살끄팀플에서 탈주는 안 되지음패마망. Com › 8862183255시따먹 최신화까지 다 봤는데 웹툰웹소설만화 에펨코리아. 할무니가 갈치 계속 발라주시는중 ㅋㅋ쿠ㅜㅜ. 귀칼 네즈코 짤
교내사생 다시보기 10 2059 시아버지가 다 따먹음 진리의 마담. 울프가드랑 로시 뭔가 익숙하다 싶더니만 이거였네. 05 215 19 search 인기글 게시. 1059, 현재 누적 70회 시따먹 밀레니엄세미나의냉혹한계산의회계 추천2비추천0댓글0조회수52작성일20220905 065457 sarca. 요청하신 탑툰 누구 퍼스나콘 웹툰웹소설만화 에펨코리아 이름모름.
과즙세연 모또모또 모음 지들끼리 선비인척 해서 그렇지 일베급 수준인곳이 하나 있음. Livebbluearchive58003885 시로코한테 따먹히고 싶다 추천. 간식 가져오면서 먹어버리기ㅋㅋㅋ 박서윤 큰아들색히 하는거 보니 첫째 며느리는 많이 혼내줘야지ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ. Com › 8862128305시따먹 맛있네 웹툰웹소설만화 에펨코리아. 이거 멋신 생각나서 쉽지 않아요 2025.
Security personnel stand guard during a curfew imposed after protesters clashed with security forces in Imphal, Manipur, India, on June 9, 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 9, 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 9, 2026.
Demonstrators outside Nepal's Parliament during a protest in Kathmandu condemning social media prohibitions and corruption by the government, June 9, 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.
패륜아를 넘어섰네요 이 시키 2025., Human Rights Watch’s 36th annual review of human rights practices and trends around the globe, reviews developments in more than 100 countries.