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.

6년 별거 박선주♥강레오, 남녀 사이 끝양육비 반반 부담. 최근 sbs 예능 프로그램 신발 벗고 돌싱포맨에 등장해 솔직한 입담으로 시청자들을 사로잡은 인물이 있습니다. 바로 작곡가이자 가수, 그리고 보컬 트레이너로 널리 알려진 박선주 님인데요. 29 7,371,251 공지 팁유용추천 더쿠에 쉽게 동영상을 올려보자.

노윤서 보지

20일에 방송된 채널a 절친 토큐멘터리 4인용식탁에서는 35년 차 싱어송.. 이로의 가족과 함께하는 특별한 순간을 만나보세요.. Com › entertainments › broadcast박선주, ♥강레오와 7년째 별거 중기러기 아빠.. 20일에 방송된 채널a 절친 토큐멘터리 4인용식탁에서는 35년 차 싱어송..

네즈코 급똥

그리고 냉동이면 해동해서 물빼고 해야하는거지.. 가수 박선주 54가 남편인 셰프 강레오 48와 혼전임신 뒷이야기를 전했다.. 현재는 대한민국의 요리사이자, 무형문화재인 궁중요리의 기능 보유자인 한복려 를 사사하고 있으며, 동시에 대한합기도회 의 자문위원으로도 활동하고 있다.. 현재는 대한민국의 요리사이자, 무형문화재인 궁중요리의 기능 보유자인 한복려 를 사사하고 있으며, 동시에 대한합기도회 의 자문위원으로도 활동하고 있다..

남자 13cm 디시

스포티비뉴스최신애 기자 박선주가 남편인 강레오 셰프와 7년째 별거 중인 사실을 밝혔다. 그리고 냉동이면 해동해서 물빼고 해야하는거지, 빈소는 서울아산병원 장례식장 1호실에 마련. 무명의 더쿠 20250312 120931 근데 강레오 쉐프가 최강록 아끼기는 하는듯 ㅋㅋ 답답할텐데 2.

이로네 결혼식 박선주와 강레오의 특별한 날. 빈소는 서울아산병원 장례식장 1호실에 마련, 서울뉴시스 최지윤 기자 가수 박선주53가 요리사 강레오48와 별거하는 이유를 밝혔다. 최근 sbs 예능 프로그램 신발 벗고 돌싱포맨에 등장해 솔직한 입담으로 시청자들을 사로잡은 인물이 있습니다, 강레오씨는 1975년생으로 반얀트리 등지에서 일하다 현재는 전국 각지에서 농사를 짓고 있습니다.

놀쟈 렉돌

Net › square › 3345148529더쿠 강레오와 별거 박선주 남녀사이 끝미친 듯이 싸웠다. 스포티비뉴스최신애 기자 박선주가 남편인 강레오 셰프와 7년째 별거 중인 사실을 밝혔다. 가수 박선주가 남편 강레오 셰프와의 연애부터 결혼, 그리고 혼전임신까지 숨겨왔던 속 이야기를 털어놨다.

놀고가365닷컴 내가 돈 보내박선주, ♥강레오와 7년째 별거. Net › square › 3238796842더쿠 박선주 ♥강레오와 별거 이유. 가수 박선주가 남편 강레오 셰프와의 진짜 이야기를 공개했다. 가수 박선주가 남편 강레오 셰프와의 첫 만남에 대해 전했다. Com › view › nisx20240802_0002835435별거 박선주 강레오와 미친듯 싸워&mldr. 냄비도감 텔레

놀재 편지로도 마음을 표현한 적도 있었다는 김태균에게 박선주는 내 스타일이 아니다며. 지난 1일 방송된 채널a 아빠는 꽃중년. 공형진의 연예계 동료인 강레오 박선주 부부 등이 근조화환을 보내며 고인을 추모했다. 아빠 강레오는 2년째 곡성에서 멜론 농사 중임. 이슈 강레오 셰프의 시중 판매죽 블라인드 테스트 1,655 0. 남놀갤

네스프레소커피머신렌탈 완전 똑부러져서 놀란 박선주강레오의 9살 딸 에이미. 그녀는 흔히 생각하는 뻔한 삶의 궤적에서 벗어나, 자신만의 방식으로 음악과 사랑을 이어가고 있는. 박선주 비혼주의였는데 딸 임신해 결혼♥강레오와 별거 중. Net › square › 3238796842더쿠 박선주 ♥강레오와 별거 이유. 슬기로운 더쿠생활 더쿠 이용팁 4015. 내 근처에서 가장 가까운 이케아 매장

남친한테 비밀이야 야동 20일에 방송된 채널a 절친 토큐멘터리 4인용식탁에서는 35년 차 싱어송. 첫 만남 이야기가 너무 재밌다, 비혼주의자도 사랑 앞에서는 어쩔 수 없구나, 정말 운명같은 러브스토리다 등 공감의 댓글을 남기며 박선주와 강레오 부부를 응원했습니다. 그리고 냉동이면 해동해서 물빼고 해야하는거지. 배우자 박선주 2012년 결혼현재3 딸 강솔에이미 2012년 12월 11일생4. 박선주는 강레오가 심리적으로 안정감을 줬다며 병원부터 가고 안심시키고 앞으로 계획을 얘기해 주더라.

남자 얼굴 크기 중요성 디시 박선주, 가정을 지키기 위해서 남편 강레오와 별거하고 있다. 무명의 더쿠 어머님 누군지 몰라가지곸ㅋㅋ 강레오 밖에 안보여 ㅋㅋㅋ. 비혼주의였던 박선주는 딸을 임신하며 강레오와 결혼했지만, 각자의 독립적인 성향을 존중하며 따로 사는 가족의 형태를 이루게 됐다고. 20일 방송된 채널a 예능물 절친 토큐멘터리 4인용식탁에는. 1집에 이어서 박선주 특유의 마이너한 감성을 그대로 가져갔으나 역시 크게 히트하지 못한다.

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.