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.

우리와는 다른 시인의 시간 개념ㅣ봄의 대무도회grand bal du. 9일 방송된 sbs 일요일이 좋다아빠를 부탁해. 샤이니 sherlock셜록 clue + note, 레드벨벳 러시안 룰렛 등 히트곡 작사가 조윤경이 쓴 첫 에세이. 공감 조윤경 original sound ebs 스페이스 공감.

똥꼬 Javrank

라스 김지연 티팬

배우 조민기의 딸 조윤경이 화제인 가운데 온라인 커뮤니티에서는 조민기와 조윤경이 함께 머드 축제를 즐기는 한 장의. 포토 미녀 아나 조윤경, 상큼한 미소 마니아리포트경기도 여주 박태성 기자 6일 경기도 여주에 위치한 솔모로컨트리클럽 메이플파인코스파, 1985년에 미국에서 태어나 성신여대 성악학과를 졸업한 그녀는 2014년부터 sbs스포츠 아나운서로 활동을 시작했습니다.

조윤경은 글래머러스한 몸매가 부각되는 래쉬가드와 뽀얀 다리가 드러나는 숏팬츠를 입고 나타나 남성들의 시선을 사로잡았다. Net › korean_jo_yoonkyungjo yoonkyung 조윤경 @ hancinema. 포토 미녀 아나 조윤경, 상큼한 미소 마니아타임즈.

Com › yoonkyung_cellistcellodeck yoonkyung cho 첼로댁 조윤경 @yoonkyung_cellist. Com › yoonkyung_cellistcellodeck yoonkyung cho 첼로댁 조윤경 @yoonkyung_cellist, In 2017, she won lyricist of the year at the gaon chart music awards, 9일 방송된 sbs 일요일이 좋다아빠를 부탁해에서 공항에 도착했을 때보다 7kg을 감량했다고, Jo is known for her fairy tale lyrics. 9일 방송된 sbs 일요일이 좋다아빠를 부탁해.

2, 녹턴 20번 c 샤프 단조, op. She has written primarily for sm entertainment artists such as boa, girls generation, shinee, exo, nct, red velvet, and aespa. 9일 방송된 sbs 일요일이 좋다아빠를 부탁해에서 공항에 도착했을 때보다 7kg을 감량했다고.

조윤경의 인생 시 한구절 ☕️ 인생시한구절 봄의대무도회 자크프레베르 프랑스어발음의신비 시인의방정식 프랑스 프랑스시 jacquesprévert, Esc 나무젓가락 쏙쏙 꽂으니 그릇이 차곡차곡. 공감 조윤경 original sound ebs 스페이스 공감. 9일 방송된 sbs 일요일이 좋다아빠를 부탁해.

레제 이름 뜻

각종 조리도구와 식기, 식재료가 뒤섞여 난장판이 되어버리기 일쑤인 주방은 특히. 90년대부터 2000년대 초반까지 추억을 회상. 크지않은 건축이지만 인테그 조윤경소장과 송승원 소장 두분의 빛나는 아이디어와 아름다움과 기능이 잘 표현된 건축. 조윤경의 인생 시 한구절 ☕️ 인생시한구절 봄의대무도회 자크프레베르 프랑스어발음의신비 시인의방정식 프랑스 프랑스시 jacquesprévert.

그녀는 과거 매직스 광고모델 선발 read more.. 미국으로 다시 유학 떠나는 조민기딸 조윤경양.. 1985년에 미국에서 태어나 성신여대 성악학과를 졸업한 그녀는 2014년부터 sbs스포츠 아나운서로 활동을 시작했습니다.. 보통 아빠를 부탁해 기사나 댓글엔 조민기 씨네 가족이 좀 비중이 적은데 간만에 평이 좋길래 굳이 찾아서 봤습니다..

레바 우울증 디시

이번 글에서는 조윤경의 프로필, 학력, 미국 생활, 결혼 근황까지 한눈에 정리해드립니다, Com › cho_cho___조윤경 @cho_cho___ instagram photos and videos, Org › wiki › jo_yoonkyungjo yoonkyung wikipedia. 우리와는 다른 시인의 시간 개념ㅣ봄의 대무도회grand bal du.

라이벌 유튜버 월드컵 Org › wiki › jo_yoonkyungjo yoonkyung wikipedia. 조혜정 vs 조윤경, 래쉬가드 패션 대결. 아빠 조민기의 초청으로 여진구와 저녁 식사를 함께한 조윤경은 여진구의 깜짝 스킨십에 비명을 지르는 등 연신 행복한 미소를 지어 눈길을 끌었다. 아빠를 부탁해 조윤경, 7kg 감량 전후모습 살펴보니날렵해진. 조윤경 아나운서 글래머스함 자체발광 뒤테미녀. 레이디보이 트위트

딥페이크 코리아 바로가기 아빠 조민기의 초청으로 여진구와 저녁 식사를 함께한 조윤경은 여진구의 깜짝 스킨십에 비명을 지르는 등 연신 행복한 미소를 지어 눈길을 끌었다. Photo by 베리굿웨딩 조윤경플래너 on febru. Com › article › 2015080788747아빠를 부탁해 조윤경, 7kg 감량 후에도 글래머 몸매 과시 깜짝. 공감 조윤경 original sound ebs 스페이스 공감. 조윤권 선수 맞춤 미드필더 디자인 프로그램. 디시인사이드 원피스 바운티러쉬

러끼 빨간약 디시 Find the latest filmography, dramas, movies, news, pictures, videos with jo yoonkyung. Com › entry › 조민기딸조민기 딸 조윤경 결혼 프로필 미국 아이비리그 졸업, 근황 정리. 우리와는 다른 시인의 시간 개념ㅣ봄의 대무도회grand bal du. Photo by 베리굿웨딩 조윤경플래너 on febru. 답글 대중적이진 않지만 놓치기엔 너무 아쉬운 미드best10댓글16. 뚱녀 야동 트위터

디시 카즈호 배우 조민기의 딸 조윤경이 화제인 가운데 온라인 커뮤니티에서는 조민기와 조윤경이 함께 머드 축제를 즐기는 한 장의. 9일 방송된 sbs 일요일이 좋다아빠를 부탁해에서 공항에 도착했을 때보다 7kg을 감량했다고. 51k followers, 340 following, 781 posts 조윤경 @cho_cho___ on instagram 🌼조연우🌼 93. 51k followers, 340 following, 781 posts 조윤경 @cho_cho___ on instagram 🌼조연우🌼 93. 이번 글에서는 조윤경의 프로필, 학력, 미국 생활, 결혼 근황까지 한눈에 정리해드립니다.

딥쓰롯 아빠를 부탁해의 배우 조민기 딸 조윤경이 화제다. 조윤경 아나운서 글래머스함 자체발광 뒤테미녀. 9일 방송된 sbs 일요일이 좋다아빠를 부탁해. 조윤경은 글래머러스한 몸매가 부각되는 래쉬가드와 뽀얀 다리가 드러나는 숏팬츠를 입고 나타나 남성들의 시선을 사로잡았다. 아빠를 부탁해의 배우 조민기 딸 조윤경이 화제다.

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.