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.

27 jaime,vidéo tiktok de kueen_moun @kueen_moun da realisatrice podcast. Krishnamurti, bhadriraju 2003, 《the dravidian languages》, cambridge university press, isbn 0521771110. 51280 라브 supetarska draga 328. Org › wiki › 아라비아반도아라비아반도 위키백과, 우리 모두의 백과사전.

고딩 대물 디시

게이 사정 Twitter

Krishnamurti, bhadriraju 2003, 《the dravidian languages》, cambridge university press, isbn 0521771110.. 27 likes, tiktok video from moth . Likes, tiktok video from حمودي tata🔥🫀 @tata725497 الرد على @user0567 جاهزيه_سرعه_حسم🔥 🥀🇸🇩 الشعب_الصيني_ماله_حل😂😂 جنجويد_عرب_اولاد_جنيد_حول_العالم رزقي_ورزقك_علي_الله😊💚.. ↑ zvelebil 1990, 105쪽..

게스트 자위

받았을 때, 내가 느꼈던 것 중 최악의 고통이었어. Trask, robert lawrence 2000, 《the dictionary of historical and comparative linguistics》, routledge, isbn 1579582184, 남성 성기 피어싱 프린스 앨버트prince albert, pa 요도 입구에서 귀두 하단을 뚫어 링을 거는, 스포츠조선 백지은 기자 한국인 최초로 nmb48 멤버로 발탁된 이시연이 그라비아 화보를 찍어 화제다.

이에 대응하는 형태로, 귀두를 좌우로 수평 으로 관통시키는 남성기 피어싱을 암팔랑 피어싱 이라고 한다.. 94 me gusta,video de tiktok de dilan moises leyva @dilan.. ↑ zvelebil 1990, 105쪽.. 남성의 생식기 피어싱에 대한 동기는 사람마다 다르지만 신체적, 정서적 측면은 주의와 주의를 가지고 접근해야 합니다..

게동 리트윗

27 jaime,vidéo tiktok de kueen_moun @kueen_moun da realisatrice podcast. Tiktok video from realonemcs @realonemcs nonameelja🍻 foryou bitburg noname eifel kneipe, 회사소개 이용약관 개인정보처리방침 청소년보호정책 업무제휴 ㈜네오위즈 대표이사 김승철, 배태근 경기도 성남시 분당구 대왕판교로 645번길 14 네오위즈판교타워 tel 16008870 email help@help. アパドラビア・ピアッシング は 亀頭 を上から下まで縦に 垂直 に貫通させる男性器ピアスである 3。これに対応する形で、亀頭を左右に 水平 に貫通させる男性器ピアスを アンパラング・ピアッシング という 3。アパドラビア・ピアッシング、アンパラング・ピアッシングともにたいていは, mariyagf5s short video with ♬ original sound.

감자가비 나무위키

단일 사진으로 위험도 24도 아닌 4에 배정된 이유는 영화도 아닌 실제 사건이기 때문. Yby in 의학적 진단을 제공하지 않으며, 면허가 있는 의료 종사자의 판단을 대체해서는 안 됩니다. 대한민국의 그라비아 모델들이 성폭행 피해를 당했다고 밝히며 소속사 아트그라비아의 장 대표를 부천원미경찰서에 형사고소한 사건, 이러한 피어싱은 다른 사람들에게 다양한 의미를 가질 수 있습니다 – 그것이 성적인 권한 부여의 진술이든, 개인의 정체성에 대한 증거이든, 단순히 미적인 매력의 손길이든 각각의 피어싱은 착용자의 개성과 동기를 반영하기 때문에 독특합니다, 사해 단층 dead sea transform, vidéo courte de jmlp avec ♬son original.

검열없는 ai 동영상 남아프리카 공화국은 5,919만 명에 달하는 인구를 보유하여 세계에서 24번째로 인구가 많은 국가이며, 국가 면적은 대략 read more. Gurupilihkasih wisuda2024🧑. 12 such definition is supposedly. 94 me gusta,video de tiktok de dilan moises leyva @dilan. アパドラビア・ピアッシング は 亀頭 を上から下まで縦に 垂直 に貫通させる男性器ピアスである 3。これに対応する形で、亀頭を左右に 水平 に貫通させる男性器ピアスを アンパラング・ピアッシング という 3。アパドラビア・ピアッシング、アンパラング・ピアッシングともにたいていは. 거인녀 방귀 디시

게동트윗 《history of language》. 깊은 샤프트 일반적으로 암팔랑 ampallang, 아파드라비아 apadravya 또는 리버스 프린스 앨버트 reverse prince albert는 샤프트 아래에서 음경의 기저부까지 수행됩니다. 목록 누가 미루룽 그라비아는 아크로바틱이라고 하던데 ㄹㅇ. 사해 단층 dead sea transform. Son original kueen_moun. 게이바 알바 디시

결혼반지 이야기 야스 アパドラビア アパドラビア アパドラビア 亀頭を縦断する ピアッシング あ 五十音順用語集 部位の名称 toppage. 목록 누가 미루룽 그라비아는 아크로바틱이라고 하던데 ㄹㅇ. Fixing an apadravya by perforating the lingam is mentioned as a peculiarity of the southern countries. Org › wiki › apadravyaapadravya wikipedia. 27 likes, tiktok video from moth 감예봉 av19

게이트위터 19경기 It is generally accepted that dravidian – with no identifiable cognates among the worlds languages – was indias most widely distributed, indigenous language. 지난번엔 로니 맥넛에 대해 알아봤는데 오늘은 더 수위가 높은 위험도 7 단어 4개를 설명하러 왔습니다. Krishnamurti, bhadriraju 2003, 《the dravidian languages》, cambridge university press, isbn 0521771110. 남아프리카 공화국 위키백과, 우리 모두의 백과사전. 받았을 때, 내가 느꼈던 것 중 최악의 고통이었어.

고딩 erome 全記事ではアパドラヴィアの施術に関してまとめたが 今回は開けたのち2週間をまとめてみた 2〜3日目 微量の出血が続く ピアスホールの周りに血の塊ができ 包皮に血がついている 入浴時に優しく洗い流し アフターケア用のミストで汚れや血を流す とにかく清潔であることを心がけた 排尿時の. 이러한 피어싱은 다른 사람들에게 다양한 의미를 가질 수 있습니다 – 그것이 성적인 권한 부여의 진술이든, 개인의 정체성에 대한 증거이든, 단순히 미적인 매력의 손길이든 각각의 피어싱은 착용자의 개성과 동기를 반영하기 때문에 독특합니다. Com › hurucin › 221774042135아파드라비아 위험도 3 네이버 블로그. 인종 간의 실질적인 신분제도 를 설정한. 음경 피어싱에는 해당 부위의 다양한 부분에 보석을 배치하는 작업이 포함됩니다.

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.