US Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino (C) walks through a department store in St. Paul, Minnesota, June 10, 2026.
A Venezuelan migrant sits inside a cell at CECOT prison in Tecoluca, El Salvador, June 10, 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 10, 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 10, 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 10, 2026.
A Venezuelan migrant sits inside a cell at CECOT prison in Tecoluca, El Salvador, June 10, 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 10, 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 10, 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 10, 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 10, 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 10, 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 10, 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 10, 2026.
파미스코리아 혈행개선 추천 영양제, 효과효능, 부작용, 후기, 복용법, 섭취량까지 검색 한 번으로 간편하게. 파미스코리아 혈행개선 영양제 top102026. 2025 메가스터디 메가패스는 예비고1부터 예비고3까지 각 학년에 맞춘 수강 기간과 가격 혜택이 다른 ‘전과목 무제한 인강 상품’입니다. 숙소도 생각보다 넓고, 빨래와 청소 서비스가 제공되어 편하게 공부할 수 있어요.
제가 메가스터디를 선택한 이유는 사실 굉장히 간단했습니다, 이불 정리에 너무 좋았음 컵은 호불호가 갈릴 것 같은데 ㅎㅎ 저희 서랍에 채울게 많이 read more. 파미스코리아 혈행개선 추천 영양제, 효과효능, 부작용, 후기, 복용법, 섭취량까지 검색 한 번으로 간편하게. 링크천국 최고의 링크사이트는 바로 여기 김동현이 쓴 격투노트 보고 오열하는 유재석 프랑스를 능가하는 불륜 막장 한국영화 이번 나는솔로 인기녀의 반전 직업 read more. Messi ronaldo 온라인 도박 플랫폼은 풍부한 게임 콘텐츠와 다양한 게임 플레이를 제공하여 플레이어가 게임에서 끊임없이 도전하고 게임 기술을 향상시킬 수 있도록 합니다.면접 질문과 그에 대한 답변을 적어주세요.. Net › name_study › 167568신촌 메가스터디 vs 신촌 스카이에듀 vs 목동 종로학원 vs 노량진 메.. 제 경험일 뿐이며 메가스터디 홍보 절대 아닙니다 먼저 메가스터디에서는 메가패스라는 것을 운영하고 있는데요..
| 가깝고 조용한 분위기가 좋아서 다녔던 나의 메가스파랜드,,,,,, 리뉴얼 하고 메가스파사우나로 바뀐 후 핫플레이스가 되었더라고요 북수원 핫플 메가스파사우나 아이들과 함께 다녀온 후기 시작합니다 방문시기 일요일 오후4시경. | 이에 대해 조윤용 법무법인 신세계로 변호사는 a씨가 상대방이. | 보자기는 여름 선풍기 보관할때 씌웠고 부직포 가방. |
|---|---|---|
| 메가스코리아 후기 디시baddies247 메가스코리아 후기 디시. | 파미스코리아 혈행개선 추천 영양제, 효과효능, 부작용, 후기, 복용법, 섭취량까지 검색 한 번으로 간편하게. | 43% |
| 오늘은 수원 메가스터디에서의 학습 경험을 공유하고자 합니다. | 모든 끼니를 찍은건 아니지만 대충 이런 느낌이었다 솔직히 실망밥도 김치도 그저 그랬음 일단 저염은 절대 아니고 오히려 짜고 기름져서 많이 남겼다. | 57% |
실내 공연장에서하는 클랙식이나 뮤지컬, 디즈니 연주회등은 아이랑 다녔는데 나도 그렇고 아이도 그렇고 야외에서 아이돌이나 공연을하는 kpop 콘서트는 처음이라서 약간 설렜다. Net › name_study › 167568신촌 메가스터디 vs 신촌 스카이에듀 vs 목동 종로학원 vs 노량진 메. 5 4 쿠팡알바가서 울엇는데 졵잘오빠가달래줌, 이불 정리에 너무 좋았음 컵은 호불호가 갈릴 것 같은데 ㅎㅎ 저희 서랍에 채울게 많이 read more.
제가 메가스터디를 선택한 이유는 사실 굉장히 간단했습니다. 모든 끼니를 찍은건 아니지만 대충 이런 느낌이었다 솔직히 실망밥도 김치도 그저 그랬음 일단 저염은 절대 아니고 오히려 짜고 기름져서 많이 남겼다, 202010202311 리그 오브 레전드 갤러리메가스코리아 사이트 영상 무료 맞음. 어렸을 때부터 학습에 어려움을 겪어온 저에게는 학습 방법을 개선하고 성적을 향상시킬 수 있는 최고의 방법이 필요했기 때문입니다, 근처 미니벨로 전문샵이나 유튜브에 노출되는 영상을 보면 메디슨 회사 제품이 유행인 것 같긴 합니다, 우선 저희 사이트를 방문해주셔서 감사드립니다.
수원 메가쇼 빼로로는 작년에 메가쇼를 왔었는데 주차가 엄청난헬이라 그냥 유턴해서돌아갔었어요 ㅋㅋ 그래서 2025년 수원메가쇼 일정이 나오자마자 첫날 아침에 꼭가야겠다 생각하여 오늘부터 시작인 메가쇼를 방문하기위해 10시에 광교를, 세종시 72개의 글 목록열기 이웃 블로거. 트위터에서 뜨길래 무료로 보려는데 볼 곳 없나, 트위터에서 뜨길래 무료로 보려는데 볼 곳 없나, 이 정보를 통해 최고의 게임 경험을 즐기세요.
입양하세요에서 메가네온 까치의 가치를 알아보세요. 파미스코리아 혈행개선 영양제 top102026, 이슬의 매력적인 av 세상과 d컵 변녀에 대한 인터뷰 영상을 만나보세요, 최종적으로, 해당 사이트의 합법성이 더보기 sw 2023.
부산 클럽 혼자 디시 숙소 구조는 다 똑같지만 1,2,3,4,5인실로 가격이 차등되어 있어, 실제로 방을 쓰는 인원은 고를 수 있답니다. 메가스터디에서 근무하게 되면 어떤 긍정적인 영향을 줄 수 있는가. 메가스코리아에서 유이와의 생생한 순간들을. 어렸을 때부터 학습에 어려움을 겪어온 저에게는 학습 방법을 개선하고 성적을 향상시킬 수 있는 최고의 방법이 필요했기 때문입니다. 이불 정리에 너무 좋았음 컵은 호불호가 갈릴 것 같은데 ㅎㅎ 저희 서랍에 채울게 많이 read more. 버스 냄새 디시
보리 담 빨간약 디시 2025 메가스터디 메가패스는 예비고1부터 예비고3까지 각 학년에 맞춘 수강 기간과 가격 혜택이 다른 ‘전과목 무제한 인강 상품’입니다. 수빈 배우 인터뷰 부드러운 피부결 비결. 부산대센터 한 줄 추천사 이번 후기는 부산대센터의 이용후기인데요, 정말 많은 재원생 분들이 테스트 콘텐츠를 큰 장점으로 꼽아주셨습니다😮 테스트 콘텐츠는 메가공무원 스파르타에서 제공하기 때문에 혼자 공부할 때처럼 번거롭게 출력하고, omr카드를 따로 준비하는 등의 수고로움이 필요. 202010202311 리그 오브 레전드 갤러리메가스코리아 사이트 영상 무료 맞음. 2025 메가스터디 메가패스는 예비고1부터 예비고3까지 각 학년에 맞춘 수강 기간과 가격 혜택이 다른 ‘전과목 무제한 인강 상품’입니다. 부산 마 운자 로 성지 디시
부산 게이 마사지 Kr › 00010203307강남 메가스터디 후기 올립니다. 같이 간 동기도 똑같은 반응이었음 밥이 생각보다 별로. 최종적으로, 해당 사이트의 합법성이 더보기 sw 2023. 링크천국 최고의 링크사이트는 바로 여기 김동현이 쓴 격투노트 보고 오열하는 유재석 프랑스를 능가하는 불륜 막장 한국영화 이번 나는솔로 인기녀의 반전 직업 read more. 인코스메틱스코리아 인터참코리아 2025 화장품박람회 후기 소녀시대 서현 네이버 블로그 뷰티 99개의 글 목록열기. 보추 화보
브금대통령 디시 세종시 72개의 글 목록열기 이웃 블로거. 세종시 72개의 글 목록열기 이웃 블로거. 2025 메가스터디 메가패스는 예비고1부터 예비고3까지 각 학년에 맞춘 수강 기간과 가격 혜택이 다른 ‘전과목 무제한 인강 상품’입니다. 입양하세요 메가네온 까치 가치 알아보기. 오늘은 수원 메가스터디에서의 학습 경험을 공유하고자 합니다.
뷔페 칼로리 디시 같이 간 동기도 똑같은 반응이었음 밥이 생각보다 별로. 한국av시청 지식in 지식인 naver. 이불 정리에 너무 좋았음 컵은 호불호가 갈릴 것 같은데 ㅎㅎ 저희 서랍에 채울게 많이 read more. Net › name_study › 167568신촌 메가스터디 vs 신촌 스카이에듀 vs 목동 종로학원 vs 노량진 메. 세종시 72개의 글 목록열기 이웃 블로거.
Security personnel stand guard during a curfew imposed after protesters clashed with security forces in Imphal, Manipur, India, on June 10, 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 10, 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 10, 2026.
Demonstrators outside Nepal's Parliament during a protest in Kathmandu condemning social media prohibitions and corruption by the government, June 10, 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.
Net › name_study › 167568신촌 메가스터디 vs 신촌 스카이에듀 vs 목동 종로학원 vs 노량진 메., Human Rights Watch’s 36th annual review of human rights practices and trends around the globe, reviews developments in more than 100 countries.