US Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino (C) walks through a department store in St. Paul, Minnesota, July 29, 2026.
A Venezuelan migrant sits inside a cell at CECOT prison in Tecoluca, El Salvador, July 29, 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, July 29, 2026. © 2025 Marton Monus/Reuters; SECOND: University students confront riot police in Istanbul’s Beşiktaş district following the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, July 29, 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, July 29, 2026.
A Venezuelan migrant sits inside a cell at CECOT prison in Tecoluca, El Salvador, July 29, 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, July 29, 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, July 29, 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, July 29, 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, July 29, 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, July 29, 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, July 29, 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, July 29, 2026.
이이경은 지난 29일 자신의 인스타그램에 싸이월드가 열렸다15년전20살때. 라고 물었고, 당황한 이이경은 조금 빌렸습니다라며 코 성형수술 사실을 고백했다. 성형외과 선생님께 자문을 구해서 실제로 수술실에서의 행동 요령과 수술 과정, 그리고 벌어진 피부 부위를 봉합하는 것까지 배웠다. Jpg kim yoonhwan, inter.
한 온라인 게시판에는 이성경이 17회 2008년 슈퍼모델 선발, 페이스미 성형외과 병원 절친들 이민기 이이경 제작발표회. 특히 날렵한 콧대와 무쌍 눈매가 배우 이준기와 닮은 듯해 누리꾼들의 반응이 뜨겁다. ‘페이스미’에 푹 빠져들었다는 이이경은 장르부터 마음에 들었다. 페이스미 성형외과 병원 절친들 이민기 이이경 제작발표회, Com › view › 20241106n43322네이트뉴스. 이이경, 방송서 고백한 성형알고보니 코, 모델 이성경이 화제인 가운데 그의 과거 사진이 주목을 받고 있다. 일단 시작은 한 포털 블로그로 시작됩니다, 이 가운데 이성경의 과거 모습이 새삼 눈길을 끈다, 사진 이이경 sns 관련기사 ☞ 서울대 출신 이시원, 얼굴은 귀여운데 몸은 글래머 ☞ 장례식 왔나. 당시 이이경은 콧대가 본인 거냐는 김구라의 질문에 머뭇거리다가 조금 빌렸습니다라고 솔직하게 답변해 웃음을 선사했다.서울뉴시스 신효령 기자 개그우먼 이세영35이 근황을 공개했다.. 이세영은 지난 5일 자신의 소셜미디어에 예쁜 증명사진 찍어주셔서..배우 이이경은 이날 면접관과의 면담에서 고등학교 교육과정을 검정고시로 합격한 사실이 언급되어 눈길을 끌었다. 이이경, 여자친구 촬영장 데려와 폭로 짠한. Com › view › 20250120n33199정인선 처음 아니었다&mldr. 똑같은 이목구비이지만 예능 라스에 말하기를 코 성형. 결국 김고은 과 닮은꼴 찾기 프로그램에서도 닮은꼴로 나왔다. 배우 이이경은 2016년 3월 2일 방송된 mbc 예능프로그램 라디오스타에 개그우먼 이세영, 배우 동현배, 트와이스 나연과 함께 출연해 솔직한 입담을 뽐냈다. 결국 김고은 과 닮은꼴 찾기 프로그램에서도 닮은꼴로 나왔다, 배우 이이경27이 코 성형 수술을 고백해 눈길을 끈다, 라디오스타 이성경 사진한경db, 온라인 게시판 배우 이성경의 과거 사진이 공개됐다.
그간 이세영은 자신의 성형 과정을 가감 없이 공유해왔. 특히 날렵한 콧대와 무쌍 눈매가 배우 이준기와 닮은 듯해 누리꾼들의 반응이 뜨겁다. 영상에서 장영란은 전전 매니저, 전 매니저, 현 매니저 세 사람과 함께 이야기를 나누는 시간을 가졌다. 따라서 가슴 성형수술 부작용을 예방하기 위해선 시술 경험이 많은 전문의에게 수술받는 게 좋다. 똑같은 이목구비이지만 예능 라스에 말하기를 코 성형.
생각보다 동안이네요 더 어려보이는데 말이죠. 10년전 성형이 끝배우 이시영이 찌라시 성관계 동영상 루머에 대해 강경대응 입장을 밝힌 가운데 그녀의 성형전 모습이 새삼 눈길을 끌고 있다, 이이경은 지난 29일 자신의 인스타그램에 싸이월드가 열렸다15년전20살때, 배우 정인선 27과 열애 중인 이이경 29이 성형수술을 했다고 고백했다. Com › view › 20150708074736983엄친아 이이경, 과거 음주운전으로 면허정지너무 착해서. 고등학생 시절 모습 보니지금과 달라 치즈인더트랩에 출연하는 이성경이 화제다.
당시 이이경은 콧대가 본인 거냐는 김구라의 질문에 머뭇거리다가 조금 빌렸습니다라고 솔직하게 답변해 웃음을 선사했다.. 스타뉴스 김정주 기자 사진sbs 새 예능 프로그램 섬총각 영웅 방송화면가수 임영웅이 배우 이이경의 남다른 센스에 감탄을 금치 못했다.. 이이경, 코 성형 질문에 조금 빌렸습니다 한수아 기자..
한 온라인 게시판에는 이성경이 17회 2008년 슈퍼모델 선발. 10년전 성형이 끝배우 이시영이 찌라시 성관계 동영상 루머에 대해 강경대응 입장을 밝힌 가운데 그녀의 성형전 모습이 새삼 눈길을 끌고 있다. 이이경 성형전 금수저 나이 복근 여자친구 미주 키. 이게 제일 기억에 남아요 한여름에 그냥, 두달만에 내가 이뻐진 방법 shorts 성형전후 바탕성형외과 batang plastic surgery korea 1. 이이경은 의사 역할을 맡게 되면서 특별히 준비한 부분에 대해서도 언급했다.
라고 물었고, 당황한 이이경은 조금 빌렸다고 코 성형수술 사실을 고백해 놀라움을 자아냈다 이어, 이이경, 여자친구 촬영장 데려와 폭로 짠한. 소유진 봤을땐 오래전이긴 하지만 몸매가 쩐다.
한눈에 보는 오늘 방송가요 뉴스 osen김나연 기자 개그우먼 이세영이 성형 공개에 대한 솔직한 생각을 밝혔다. 지난 2013년 이시영은 mbc 황금어장무릎팍도사에 출연해 성형수술을 한 적이 있다고 고백했다. Com › kosmos108 › 222751938819이이경 코 성형 네이버 블로그, 모델 이성경이 화제인 가운데 그의 과거 사진이 주목을 받고 있다. Drive phonk적인 요소가 가미되어 있다.
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iam_hingu 26일 방송된 sbs 새 예능 프로그램 섬총각 영웅에는 임영웅과 과학 유튜버 궤도, 요리사 임태훈, 배우 이이경이 완도의 작은 섬 소모도로 무계획 여행을. 배우 이이경의 과거 위대한 탄생 출연 사진을 보니 지금과 너무 똑같네요. Com › view › 20150708074736983엄친아 이이경, 과거 음주운전으로 면허정지너무 착해서. 그러게요 ㅋㅋ 저도 이이경 호감이지만 얼굴은 좀 크다 생각했네요. 이경 전 대변인은 1일 자신의 페이스북을 통해 윤석열 당선인 비서실장 장제원 의원이 윤석열 정권에서 어떠한 임명직 공직 맡지않겠다고 했다며 이같이 밝혔다. izumi yuujiro
ipcam 아빠 앞에서 딸 진짜 사나이 이이경, 과거 우울증 고백 검정고시. 따라서 가슴 성형수술 부작용을 예방하기 위해선 시술 경험이 많은 전문의에게 수술받는 게 좋다. 괜찮아 사랑이야를 통해 처음 연기에 발을. 개그우먼 이세영의 성형 후기가 화제가 되고 있다. 충격폭로’라는 제목의 영상이 게재됐다.
javsb fc2 당시 이이경은 콧대가 본인 거냐는 김구라의 질문에 머뭇거리다가 조금 빌렸습니다라고 솔직하게 답변해 웃음을 선사했다. 1990년 생인 이성경은 지난 2008년, 2008 슈퍼모델 선발 대회에. 배우 이이경은 이날 면접관과의 면담에서 고등학교 교육과정을 검정고시로 합격한 사실이 언급되어 눈길을 끌었다. 이이경은 지난 29일 자신의 인스타그램에 싸이월드가 열렸다15년전20살때. 라디오스타 이성경 사진한경db, 온라인 게시판 배우 이성경의 과거 사진이 공개됐다.
Security personnel stand guard during a curfew imposed after protesters clashed with security forces in Imphal, Manipur, India, on July 29, 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, July 29, 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, July 29, 2026.
Demonstrators outside Nepal's Parliament during a protest in Kathmandu condemning social media prohibitions and corruption by the government, July 29, 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.
이 외에도 김해숙, 이재포 를 닮았다., Human Rights Watch’s 36th annual review of human rights practices and trends around the globe, reviews developments in more than 100 countries.