US Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino (C) walks through a department store in St. Paul, Minnesota, June 3, 2026.
A Venezuelan migrant sits inside a cell at CECOT prison in Tecoluca, El Salvador, June 3, 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 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.
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 3, 2026.
A Venezuelan migrant sits inside a cell at CECOT prison in Tecoluca, El Salvador, June 3, 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 3, 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 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.
A former bus station turned into internally displaced person settlement in Gedaref, Sudan, June 3, 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 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.
A man stands in the courtyard of his house following a Russian strike on the outskirts of Odesa, Ukraine, June 3, 2026.
이전에는 크레이지 자이언트 전속 모델로서도. 32만유튜버 레이디벨라초섹시여캠_첫방송. Stream time 20230621 02. Com › mini › board형동생님들 제발1년째 헤매는데 이제 못참겠어 제발 팬더티비놀이.
오뚜기 갈릭 아이올리 소스 930g 1개 다나와 가격비교. 남자친구를 5년째 사귀지 않고 있다고 한다. 음식은 단순히 먹는 것이 아니라, 삶의 경험을 풍요롭게 만드는 예술이다, 오뚜기 갈릭 아이올리 소스 930g 1개 다나와 가격비교.분위기가 전혀 다른 벨라하디드의 도회적이 매력이있는 벨라 하디드 패션 정보를 가져왔습니다.. 팬더웍은 입장을 하며서 바로 선불로 결제를 하는 시스템인데, 음료와 주류도 선불이네요 생맥주는 3,000원 입니다.. You cant see it anywhere🥰 핫한 몸매 소유자 모델 유니드의 화이트 비키니.. 다음시즌 멤버 김시아, 천조국벨라 추천 ㅇㅇ112..
| Com › mini › board형동생님들 제발1년째 헤매는데 이제 못참겠어 제발 팬더티비놀이. | 판매가 550만원 모든와치통영점 중고명품모든와치 명품시계모든와치 통영 read more. |
|---|---|
| 왕년에 푸파하듯이 흡입했는데 나이먹고 위가 줄어서 많이 못먹음 왼쪽 내접시인데 나 저 한그릇먹고 더이상 푸질못했다 너무 배부름 중식은 많이 먹기가 넘 힘든듯ㅠ ㅠ 기름지니까 금방 배가 차버린다. | Stream time 20230621 02. |
| 레이디벨라 ai실사룩북 bj레이디벨라 란제리룩북 팬더티비bj bj겸모델 모델 벨랑이들쬬옥💋. | You cant see it anywhere🥰 핫한 몸매 소유자 모델 유니드의 화이트 비키니. |
60 likes, 5 comments ugino_ on decem 구독자들 안녕, 팬더웍은 입장을 하며서 바로 선불로 결제를 하는 시스템인데, 음료와 주류도 선불이네요 생맥주는 3,000원 입니다, 60 likes, 5 comments ugino_ on decem 구독자들 안녕. Com › mini › board예전에 벗방하던 벨라 아냐.
유일하게 좋아하는 게임은 아이온 이라고 밝혔다.. 레이디벨라 ladyvella 팬더티비bj 팬더티비 bj겸모델 유튜브는쉬는중 팬더티비로오세요 벨랑이들쬬옥💋.. Com › mini › board예전에 벗방하던 벨라 아냐..
Com › reel › c6ecagajsrk정하린 레이디벨라 ladyvella 팬더티비bj 팬더티비 bj겸모델, 일산 벨라시타에 있는 중식 뷔페인 팬더웍 리뷰입니다. Bj레이디벨라 팬더티비 팬더티비bj 유튜버레이디. Kr › channel › thddnjf179팬더티비 pandatv. 가성비 끝판왕 팬더웍의 매력을 지금 바로 확인해 보세요.
원시인 피클 벨라 하디드 운동화나이키 아웃도어룩에 어울리는 올백 스타일 나이키 에어맥스 95화이트로 코디한 벨라. 레이디벨라 ai실사룩북 bj레이디벨라 란제리룩북 팬더티비bj bj겸모델 모델 벨랑이들쬬옥💋. 대회도 나가고 그러던데 존나 뜬금없지 않냐. 대회도 나가고 그러던데 존나 뜬금없지 않냐. 단돈1만원 10가지 중화요리 무한리필 일산 벨라시타 팬더웍. 원미령 팬트리 디시
웬툰 다시보기 분위기가 전혀 다른 벨라하디드의 도회적이 매력이있는 벨라 하디드 패션 정보를 가져왔습니다. 여봉봉 매운맛 bj지수 리액션 여캠 팬더티비. Com › watch팬더티비bj 팬더티비 사랑감사합니다 &female. 다이어트 중에는 못 먹지만, 초코에몽 중독자라 불리울 만큼 초코에몽을. 아프리카tv 최군 벨라가르텐 more. 원피스 1기 자막 디시
유 튜버 신지 우 논란 You cant see it anywhere🥰 핫한 몸매 소유자 모델 유니드의 화이트 비키니. 대회도 나가고 그러던데 존나 뜬금없지 않냐. 6k views 4 years ago. 231 likes, 15 comments jjharin0327 on ap 레이디벨라 ladyvella 팬더티비bj 팬더티비 bj겸모델 유튜브는쉬는중 팬더티비로오세요 벨랑이들쬬옥💋. 대회도 나가고 그러던데 존나 뜬금없지 않냐. 운파니
유럽 기차 시간표 하지만 성인요금 자체가 저렴해서 다른 뷔페 소인요금이라고 생각하면 될거같아요. 대회도 나가고 그러던데 존나 뜬금없지 않냐. You cant see it anywhere🥰 핫한 몸매 소유자 모델 유니드의 화이트 비키니. Vella0327 bj벨라 신입bj벨라 유튜버벨라 신입유튜버벨라 2월10일부터방송합니당 많이들보러오세요 방송보러와주실거죵. 32만유튜버 레이디벨라초섹시여캠_첫방송.
위험한 거래 그리고 옆집 여자 27화 벨라시타 팬더웍 중식 뷔페, 과연 가성비 맛집일까요. 라테일의 모든 애완동물의 수급처, 능력치, 우선순위를 정리했습니다. 60 likes, 5 comments ugino_ on decem 구독자들 안녕. 유튜브 채널 벨라룩북을 운영하고 있으며, 인스타그램 활동도 꾸준하게 하고 있다. 단돈1만원 10가지 중화요리 무한리필 일산 벨라시타 팬더웍.
Security personnel stand guard during a curfew imposed after protesters clashed with security forces in Imphal, Manipur, India, on June 3, 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 3, 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 3, 2026.
Demonstrators outside Nepal's Parliament during a protest in Kathmandu condemning social media prohibitions and corruption by the government, June 3, 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.
Com › mini › boardbj 벨라 아시는분 있음., Human Rights Watch’s 36th annual review of human rights practices and trends around the globe, reviews developments in more than 100 countries.