US Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino (C) walks through a department store in St. Paul, Minnesota, June 11, 2026.
A Venezuelan migrant sits inside a cell at CECOT prison in Tecoluca, El Salvador, June 11, 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 11, 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 11, 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 11, 2026.
A Venezuelan migrant sits inside a cell at CECOT prison in Tecoluca, El Salvador, June 11, 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 11, 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 11, 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 11, 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 11, 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 11, 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 11, 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 11, 2026.
Com › mrsanahi › 224058327885트럼프에게 왕관선물 국내외 주요 반응 네이버 블로그. 미국 전역에서 최근 트럼프 행정부 정책에 반대하는 노킹스 no kings, 왕은 없다 시위가 벌어지고 있는 상황이라 온라인 밈으로 확산하는 모양새다. 도널드 트럼프는 1946년 6월 14일 뉴욕주 뉴욕시 퀸스 에서 태어났다. Day ago 미국 의 정치인, 금융인, 변호사.
| 2 멜라니아 트럼프 도널드 트럼프의 세 번째 부인이자 미국의 제47대 영부인. | 이 단체에서 시위를 조직해 도널드 트럼프 반대 운동을 펼쳤다. | 트럼프 왕국의 지하에는 과거 프리큐어들이 프로토 지코츄를 봉인하고 수정 기둥과 이터널 골든 크라운으로 가둬. | 특히 더그 포드 캐나다 온타리오 주지사는 2월까지 수차례 워싱턴 d. |
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| 2 멜라니아 트럼프 도널드 트럼프의 세 번째 부인이자 미국의 제47대 영부인. | 멕시코, 일본, 유럽 등지의 20여 개국에서 시위가 벌어졌다. | Com › mrsanahi › 224058327885트럼프에게 왕관선물 국내외 주요 반응 네이버 블로그. | Club › lists › suggestions로널드 레이건 백악관 초상화 앤드루 잭슨 초상화. |
| 핀란드 허위매물 레오 친형의 안타까운 근황jpg. | 트럼프trump는 카드 게임에서 으뜸패를 뜻하는 영단어다. | Day ago 미국 의 정치인, 금융인, 변호사. | 이 단체에서 시위를 조직해 도널드 트럼프 반대 운동을 펼쳤다. |
| 상원과 하원을 모두 공화당이 과반 이상을 장악한데다가, 연방대법관 9명 중 6명이 보수 성향을 보이기 때문에 1 최소한 2026년 중간. | 에서 트럼프 자신의 생일이자 미군 창립 250 왕관을 주면 어떡하냐는 볼멘소리가 나왔다. | 진아리 본인도 트럼프 일편단심인데다가 공식에서도 밀어주고 있어서 진아리와 이어질 가능성이 적은 체스와는 달리 트럼프는 완전히 선역으로 변한다면 이어질 가능성이 매우 높았으나 2기를 끝으로 작품이 완결되어버려서 가능성 또한 없어졌다. | 로이터 통신, 폭스뉴스 등에 따르면 트럼프 대통령은 이날 백악관에서 마르크 뤼터 nato 사무총장 과 회담하며 만약 푸틴 대통령이 50일 내 우크라이나와 합의하지 않는다면 매우 혹독한 관세를 부과할 것이라며 관세는 약 100% 수준이 될 것이고. |
에서 트럼프 자신의 생일이자 미군 창립 250 왕관을 주면 어떡하냐는 볼멘소리가 나왔다.. 도널드 트럼프 대통령 의 지명으로 제16대 연방준비제도 이사회.. 미국 역사상 최고령 대통령이며,20 미국 역사상 가장 많은 재산을 보유한 대통령이기도 하다..
월간조선image size650x351 트럼프 스타일로 화려하게취임 8주만에 싹 바뀐 백악관 네이트 뉴스image size560x373 역대 美 대통령과 트럼프백악관에 걸린 그림 화제image size520x342 로널드 레이건 나무위키image size1000x1398 레이건 전 대통령 살던 해안, 에릭 트럼프 도널드 트럼프의 셋째이자 차남. 이번 글에서는 이 두 가지의 의미, 배경, 그리고 최신 기사들을 토대로 상세히 분석해보겠다.
Kr › news › pc트럼프가 받은 ‘신라 왕관’, 미국인들 반응이&mldr. 신라 왕관 선물 대한민국에서도 왕노릇하다 탄핵당한 대통령이 있었다는 왕관이 주는 중의적 메시지를 트럼프는 알까. Day ago 미국 의 정치인, 금융인, 변호사, 2 멜라니아 트럼프 도널드 트럼프의 세 번째 부인이자 미국의 제47대 영부인.
진실 알고보니, 일부 데스마스크 주장하지만 생전에도 착용했을 가능성 높아 국립경주박물관 역대급 금관전과. 이번 글에서는 이 두 가지의 의미, 배경, 그리고 최신 기사들을 토대로 상세히 분석해보겠다, 진실 알고보니, 일부 데스마스크 주장하지만 생전에도 착용했을 가능성 높아 국립경주박물관 역대급 금관전과. 히스토리 채널 이 제작한 트럼프 가문의 역사 다큐멘터리 트럼프 왕조trump dynasty, 이 단체에서 시위를 조직해 도널드 트럼프 반대 운동을 펼쳤다.
fc2ppv2701833 월간조선image size650x351 트럼프 스타일로 화려하게취임 8주만에 싹 바뀐 백악관 네이트 뉴스image size560x373 역대 美 대통령과 트럼프백악관에 걸린 그림 화제image size520x342 로널드 레이건 나무위키image size1000x1398 레이건 전 대통령 살던 해안. 트럼프 가의 사업은 60년대와 70년대에 걸쳐 흑인 세입자들을 차별했다는 소송으로 큰 곤혹을 치뤘다. Kr › news › pc트럼프가 받은 ‘신라 왕관’, 미국인들 반응이&mldr. 진실 알고보니, 일부 데스마스크 주장하지만 생전에도 착용했을 가능성 높아 국립경주박물관 역대급 금관전과. Club › lists › suggestions로널드 레이건 백악관 초상화 앤드루 잭슨 초상화. fc2ppv4348624
fc2-ppv-3992207 한국의 대통령기록관 에 해당하는 미국 국립문서보관청 national archives and records administration에서 트럼프 대통령이 퇴임하고 나서 일급기밀문서 등을 포함한 공문서를 반납하지 않았다고 법무부에 송치하였으며, 이를 시발점으로 fbi와의 관계가 악화됐다. 2100개의 지역에서 주최측은 500만명이 참여했다고 추산했다. 미국 전역에서 도널드 트럼프 대통령 국정 운영방식에 반대하는 시위가 벌어지자 트럼프 대통령이 왕관을 쓴 합성 이미지를 공유하며 시위대를. 美 오바마 전 대통령 초상화 속 꽃의 의미는. Kr › article › 25378474신라금관 쓰고 춤추는 트럼프&mldr. f95zone the count
fc2 사진 이후 경영권을 물려받은 도널드 트럼프 가 2016년 제45대 미국 대통령 에 당선되면서 전 세계적으로 주목받기 시작했다. 명예의 트럼프 첩보요원 c2팀의 요원으로, 반의 지휘 아래에서 16년동안 텐과 란을 추적, 관찰하고 있었다고 한다. 에서 트럼프 자신의 생일이자 미군 창립 250 왕관을 주면 어떡하냐는 볼멘소리가 나왔다. 히스토리 채널 이 제작한 트럼프 가문의 역사 다큐멘터리 트럼프 왕조trump dynasty. Org › wiki › 도널드_트럼프도널드 트럼프 위키백과, 우리 모두의 백과사전. fc21538563
fc2ppv 4694056 배우 도널드 트럼프 2기 행정부의 각종 논란에 대한 반발로 인해 설립된 미국의 정치단체. 트럼프 대통령은 18일현지시간 사회관계망서비스sns 트루스소셜에 인공지능ai으로 만들어진 듯한 영상을 하나 공유했다. 를 방문했는데 그가 만난 트럼프 측 인사들은 모두 트럼프 대통령의 계획에 대해 잘 모르는 것처럼 보였다고 wsj 에 전했다. 유일하게 술 자리가 제공된 순간은 2025년 apec 대한민국 경주 정상회의 8개국 정상 만찬에서 차남 에릭 트럼프 가 운영하는 와이너리의 와인 이 만찬주로 나왔던 때였는데, 이때조차 입에 대는 시늉만 하고 마시지 않았다. 이재명 대통령으로부터 선물받은 천마총 금관 모양을 착용한 도널드 트럼프 대통령의 합성 영상이 온라인에서 밈 meme화돼 급속도로 퍼지고 있다.
fc2ppv 4798512 트럼프 왕국의 지하에는 과거 프리큐어들이 프로토 지코츄를 봉인하고 수정 기둥과 이터널 골든 크라운으로 가둬. 하지만 트럼프 입장에서는, 오히려 자신을 조롱하던 이들을 향한 반전의 승리처럼 느껴질 수도 있습니다. 금관총 금관의 무게가 692 g, 천마총 금관은 1,262 g 남짓이라 한국군 현용 방탄모 의 무게 1. 도널드 트럼프 대통령 의 지명으로 제16대 연방준비제도 이사회. 5 cm, 지름 20 cm의 금관으로, 무덤의 피장자의 턱까지 씌워진 채로 발견1되었다.
Security personnel stand guard during a curfew imposed after protesters clashed with security forces in Imphal, Manipur, India, on June 11, 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 11, 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 11, 2026.
Demonstrators outside Nepal's Parliament during a protest in Kathmandu condemning social media prohibitions and corruption by the government, June 11, 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.
1 트럼프 집안은 독일 서남부 칼슈타트 출신인 할아버지 프레더릭 트럼프 프리드리히 트룸프가 16세 때인 1885년 미국에 이민 오면서 트럼프 일가를 이뤘다., Human Rights Watch’s 36th annual review of human rights practices and trends around the globe, reviews developments in more than 100 countries.