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세계적 거장 로댕 조각상샤갈 석판화, 카이스트 미술관서 본다.

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.

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 3, 2026.
University students confront riot police in Istanbul’s Beşiktaş district following the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, June 3, 2026.

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 3, 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 3, 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.

A volunteer at a food distribution event outside of Brooklyn Borough Hall in New York City, June 3, 2026.
A volunteer at a food distribution event outside of Brooklyn Borough Hall in New York City, June 3, 2026. © 2025 Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images

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.

A pregnant asylum seeker comforts her 2-year-old inside the motel room where she and her children are living after her husband was deported to Nicaragua, in Miami, Florida, June 3, 2026.
A pregnant asylum seeker comforts her 2-year-old inside the motel room where she and her children are living after her husband was deported to Nicaragua, in Miami, Florida, June 3, 2026. © 2025 Rebecca Blackwell/AP Photo

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.

US Speaker of the House Mike Johnson talks to reporters after a closed door briefing with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on US military strikes on suspected Venezuelan drug boats, Washington, DC, June 3, 2026.
US Speaker of the House Mike Johnson talks to reporters after a closed door briefing with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on US military strikes on suspected Venezuelan drug boats, Washington, DC, June 3, 2026. © 2025 Samuel Corum/Sipa USA via AP Photo

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.

Surveillance cameras installed in Lhasa, Tibet Autonomous Region, June 3, 2026. 
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 3, 2026.

FIRST: Surveillance cameras installed in Lhasa, Tibet Autonomous Region, June 3, 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 3, 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.

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.

A Palestinian girl stands amidst rubble in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip, June 3, 2026.
Palestinians inspect a house demolished by Israeli military forces in the town of Qabatiya in the Israeli occupied West Bank, June 3, 2026.

FIRST: A Palestinian girl stands amidst rubble in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip, June 3, 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 3, 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.

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라고 해야 동성이라도 외모에 끌리는 경우가 있긴하더라고 사랑은 아니고 동경이라고.. 그동안 말할곳도 없고 답답했어요 처음만난건 고등학생때.. 숨쉬기만 해도 뇌 건강이 달라진다 석문호흡 땐 뇌척수액..
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Net › square › 272837633더쿠 동성애의진실 스압. Com › goodlife_workshop › 223552859664동성동본 결혼 네이버 블로그. Jpg 29,197 67 무명의 더쿠 stheqoo.
20년 만에 부활한 k리그 슈퍼컵프로축구연맹 29일. 솔직히 멋있다고 생각되는건 동성이 더 많지만 한번도 내가 동성애자란 생각이 든적은 없는데 성욕. 15년 짝사랑한 친구가 어제 결혼 했어요.
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Txt 12,914 39 무명의 더쿠 Stheqoo.

몸 상태나 상황에 따라 호흡을 잘 조절하면 건강에 도움이 된다고 알려져 있으며 복식호흡, 단전호흡 등 많은 호흡법이 개발되고 많은 사람이 실천하고 read more. 온라인 상에서 해당 그룹에 대한 추측성 글이 확산하고 있는 가운데 한 그룹의 소속사가 피해를 호소하며 법적 대응을 시사했다, 잡담 동성친구끼리 팔짱끼고 손잡는거 할일이 없지 않아, 29 19,139,180 공지 성별관련 공지 16.

동성결혼 및 동성커플 인정에 대해서도 부정적이다, Com › index난 분명 내가 헤테로라고 생각했는데 스레딕, 저도 현재 고2인데 5년간 짝사랑한 동성친구가있어요ㅠㅠ 서로 다른고등학교갔는데 학교가바로옆이여서 종종보긴하는데너무 보고싶어서 미칠거같네요 ㅠㅠㅠㅠ 답글 개 답글쓰기 아휴 2019. 이슈 동성부부와 이성부부 이혼율 통계, 이들이 미혼모 가정으로 분리 read more.

Days Ago 잡담 체급따라 달라지는건 주로 동성배우들끼리 싸울때 많이느낌 158 3 무명의 더쿠 Stheqoo.

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Net › square › 272837633더쿠 동성애의진실 스압, 세계적 거장 로댕 조각상샤갈 석판화, 카이스트 미술관서 본다. 유머 동성 친구에게 고백을 받는다면. 무명의 더쿠 20260126 101832 비회원은 작성한 지 1시간 이내의 댓글은 읽을 수 없습니다, 저도 현재 고2인데 5년간 짝사랑한 동성친구가있어요ㅠㅠ 서로 다른고등학교갔는데 학교가바로옆이여서 종종보긴하는데너무 보고싶어서 미칠거같네요 ㅠㅠㅠㅠ 답글 개 답글쓰기 아휴 2019.

동성결혼 및 동성커플 인정에 대해서도 부정적이다, 12 1710 731 4 updowncomment 얘는 나랑만 친해야되는데 다른친구들이랑 친하게 지내는거보면 질투하고그랫음, 더쿠 새벽이라서 올리는 레오나르도 디카프리오 리즈시절 키스신들image size540x228 엄빠주의 레오나르도 디카프리오 kisssssss scene 인스티즈 instiz image size500x213 레오나르도 디카프리오가 21살때 찍은 동성 키스씬 후방주의 악플 image size245x150. 인간은 양성애자인데 후천적으로 주변 환경에 영향 받아서 스스로를 이성애자라고 생각한다라는 연구 결과를 봤음.

우리는 살면서 동성이기에 우정으로 넘겼던 사랑이 많고.. 11 2237 나덬은 여자인데 지금까지 연애는 나름 꾸준히 해온 류의 사람임 동성애에 대해서 거부감이 있는건 아닌데 그냥 나는 이성애자라고 평생을 생각해왔음 그 이유야 여자를 좋아해본적이 없으니까..

Jpg 29,197 67 무명의 더쿠 Stheqoo.

이슈 동성부부와 이성부부 이혼율 통계. 알림결과 후기 리뷰 onair 잡담지금은 안그런데 학생때는 동성친구한테 엄청 집착햇던것같아 ㅋㅋㅋㅋ 731 4 무명의 더쿠 stheqoo. 이슈 가끔 동성에게 설렐 때가 있다는 고민남에게 홍석천이 해준 조언, 동성결혼에 가장 호의적인 사람들이 있다면 여기임. Net › dyb › 4073786581더쿠 또래 동성청춘물귀해.

무명의 더쿠 원덬 20260126 101921 비회원은 작성한 지 1시간 이내의 댓글은 읽을 수 없습니다.

동성애자는 일단 존재하는 것이고 그들도 국민이라면 가족을 만들기에 가장 안전한 제도에서 아이를 낳고 양육하도록 하는게 국가의 의무임. 잡담 동성친구끼리 팔짱끼고 손잡는거 할일이 없지 않아, 무명의 더쿠 20260126 101832 비회원은 작성한 지 1시간 이내의 댓글은 읽을 수 없습니다.

20년 만에 부활한 k리그 슈퍼컵프로축구연맹 29일, 동성동본 뜻, 왜 과거에는 불법이었는지, 동성동본 결혼 폐지 합법화 과정, 그리고 현재의 논쟁까지 차례로 살펴보겠습니다, 3,897 16 무명의 더쿠 stheqoo, 감독들이 동성 ㅅㅅ씬을 넣는 이유가 사람들이 못 알아쳐먹어.

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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.”

Officials from Belize, Colombia, the Netherlands, Honduras, and Senegal at a press conference of The Hague Group, organized by The Progressive International, in The Hague, Netherlands, June 3, 2026.
Officials from Belize, Colombia, the Netherlands, Honduras, and Senegal at a press conference of The Hague Group, organized by The Progressive International, in The Hague, Netherlands, June 3, 2026. © 2025 Pierre Crom/Getty Images

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.

Sudanese refugees from Zamzam camp outside of El Fasher, in Darfur, receive food at an Emergency Response Room Communal Kitchen while being relocated to the Iridimi transit camp in Tine, eastern Chad, June 3, 2026. 
Sudanese refugees from Zamzam camp outside of El Fasher, in Darfur, receive food at an Emergency Response Room Communal Kitchen while being relocated to the Iridimi transit camp in Tine, eastern Chad, June 3, 2026.  © 2025 Lynsey Addario/Getty Images

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.

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.

Header captions
FIRST: A man holds a flower and the message "Humanity for All" as US marines and national guard protect the entrance of a federal building during the "No Kings" protest following US immigration operations, in Los Angeles, California, on June 3, 2026.
© 2025 Etienne Laurent/AFP via Getty Images; SECOND: A doctor and a midwife assist a pregnant patient at a provincial hospital's maternity department after others closed due to US funding cuts in Ghazni province, Afghanistan, June 3, 2026. © 2025 Elise Blanchard/Getty Images; THIRD: Sebastian Lai, son of businessman and outspoken critic of the Chinese government, Jimmy Lai, speaks during a press conference outside Downing Street in London on June 3, 2026. © 2025 Henry Nicholls/AFP via Getty Images; FOURTH: Residents pass by the site of a Russian air strike that destroyed a residential house in Kramatorsk, Ukraine, June 3, 2026. © 2025 Yevhen Titov/AP Photo

3,897 16 무명의 더쿠 stheqoo., Human Rights Watch’s 36th annual review of human rights practices and trends around the globe, reviews developments in more than 100 countries.

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