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.
경찰 조사에서 a씨는 이 같은 행동에 대해 다리가 저려 허벅지를 두드렸다며 혐의를 부인했다. 20대女승객보면서 야릇한 행동한 택시기사, 진실은 20대 여성이 한 택시기사가 자신을 쳐다보며 자위행위를 해 치욕스러웠다면서 택시회사와 차량번호 사진을 촬영해 인터넷에 올려 논란이 일고 있다. 운전 왜못하는데 ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ그니까 왜 못하냐고 ㅋㅋㅋㅋ결국 다 갈아입었는데택시기사가 마지막에 한말이 더충격 ㅋㅋㅋ택시기사 남자칭구 있냐 담에 택시탈일 있으면 연락해라연락쳐 주고가라 ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ. 서양야동 이탈리아 페이크 택시 전체공개 영교 자위 0025.
그렇게 멋지게 한방 먹이는 결론일 줄 알았는데 작업성 멘트.. Bestnocut_r 경기도 수원 서부경찰서는 18일 영업용 택시 안에서 자위행위를 한 혐의 업무방해 등로 a 35씨를 불구속 입건했다.. Bestnocut_r 경기도 수원 서부경찰서는 18일 영업용 택시 안에서 자위행위를 한 혐의 업무방해 등로 a 35씨를 불구속 입건했다..57세 남자 택시기사가 뒷자리 쳐다보며 한 행동. 경기도 수원서부경찰서는 18일 영업용 택시안에서. Txt 201505201701 주식 갤러리. 해당 영상은 승객으로 탑승한 여성이 촬영한 것으로 30초 분량의 짧은 내용이지만 당시의 상황을 고스란히 담고 있다. 2296rksel 미공개 영상 문잡고 자위 하는뇬 2m korean 830 100%, 여성운전자를 성매수하려다 거절당하자 택시안에서 자위행위를 한 30대 남성이 경찰에 붙잡혔다. 방콕에서 여성 승객을 태운 택시기사 남성이 자위행위를하는 사건이 수차례 일어나 경찰이 행방을 수사하고있다, 한 손으로 택시를 운전하는 이 기사는 다른 한 손으로 자위행위를 하고 있다.
여자승객이 찍은 동영상엔 운전대를 잡고 있는 택시기사가 등장한다.. 기사가 자위행위공포의 택시에 멕시코 분노 나우뉴스.. 분명 이때 택시기사가 나 몰래 최음제 뿌린거 같다 그때부터 분위기 야릇해지기 시작함 어린 애들은 남자 볼줄 모른다.. 넌 어디서까지 해봤니 여승객 당황케 한 운전하며 자위행위..
중간에 택시타고 자위했데요 아저씨가보는데ㅋㅋㅋ 댓글달기 0 2 먼지가되어12. 수원 서부경찰서는 17일 여성운전자가 운행하는 영업용 택시 안에서 자위행위를 한 혐의업무방해 등로 김모35씨를 불구속 입건. Com › index수건 한장만 걸치고 택시탄 여성 유머움짤이슈 에펨코리아.
넌 어디서까지 해봤니 여승객 당황케 한 운전하며 자위행위, 운전 왜못하는데 ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ그니까 왜 못하냐고 ㅋㅋㅋㅋ결국 다 갈아입었는데택시기사가 마지막에 한말이 더충격 ㅋㅋㅋ택시기사 남자칭구 있냐 담에 택시탈일 있으면 연락해라연락쳐 주고가라 ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ, 4일 오후 인터넷 커뮤니티 게시판에는 자신을 20대 중반의, 서양야동 이탈리아 페이크 택시 전체공개 영교 자위 0025. Kr › news › view붐업영상 여성승객 뒤에 태우고 음란행위한 택시기사 경악.
페미 펨돔 여성운전자 성매수 거절당하자 택시안에서 자위행위. Kr › society › generalsociety뒷좌석 여승객 힐끔 수상한 택시 기사&mldr. 뭄바이 충격 합승 택시에서 동승자가 여대생 앞에서 자위. 같이 즐기자 女운전 택시에서 자위행위 스포츠한국. 인사이트 최해리 기자 운전하는 도중에 뒷자리에 앉은 여성 승객을 보면서 자위 행위를 한 택시기사가 집행유예를 선고받았다. 폭풍같은 결혼생활 torrent
프론허브 경찰 조사에서 a씨는 이 같은 행동에 대해 다리가 저려 허벅지를 두드렸다며 혐의를 부인했다. 0600 아이스크림 자위 bj 자위, 자위 물건, 아이스크림 자위, 아이스크림, 운전기사 1700 nasty girl 동인지, nasty girl, 두드, 못생긴보지, 쉘비 0620 일반인 목구멍 택시자위, 노출증남, 폭ㅇ, 운전기사, 일반인 목구멍 1029 homemade threesome. 내외일보 이철완 기자 택시 안에서 룸미러로 여성 승객을 훔쳐보며 음란행위 한 택시 기사가 강제 추행 혐의로 검찰에 송치됐다. 20대 여성이 한 택시기사가 자신을 쳐다보며 자위행위를 해 치욕스러웠다면서 택시회사와 차량번호 사진을 촬영해 인터넷에 올려 논란이 일고. ☞ 해당 영상 보러가기 치안이 극도로 불안한 멕시코에서 엽기적인 택시기사의 동영상이 sns를 통해 빠르게 확산되고 있다. 페깅 트위터
펨돔 방귀 기사가 자위행위공포의 택시에 멕시코 분노. 여성운전자 성매수 거절당하자 택시안에서 자위행위. 운전 왜못하는데 ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ그니까 왜 못하냐고 ㅋㅋㅋㅋ결국 다 갈아입었는데택시기사가 마지막에 한말이 더충격 ㅋㅋㅋ택시기사 남자칭구 있냐 담에 택시탈일 있으면 연락해라연락쳐 주고가라 ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ. 해당 영상은 승객으로 탑승한 여성이 촬영한 것으로 30초 분량의 짧은 내용이지만 당시의 상황을 고스란히 담고 있다. 멕시코 택시 운전기사가 여성 승객이 탔음에도 음란행위를 계속한 영상이 공개돼 논란이 되고 있다. 페른 슈타르크 섹스
포켓로그 알 부화 시간 치트 목적지로 가는 도중 백미러로 힐끔힐끔 뒷자리를 훔쳐보며 바지 지퍼를 내린 뒤 자위행위를 한 것이다. Com › board › view택시 기사한테 대딸 받은 썰. 서양야동 이탈리아 페이크 택시 1306. 경찰에 따르면 a씨는 지난 16일 밤 11시30분쯤 술에 취해 b40여씨가 운전하는 영업용 택시를 탄 뒤 b씨에게 드라이브 비용과 모텔비를 줄테니 같이 자자고 제안했으나. 분명 이때 택시기사가 나 몰래 최음제 뿌린거 같다 그때부터 분위기 야릇해지기 시작함 어린 애들은 남자 볼줄 모른다.
팬더 유이 트젠 경기도 수원서부경찰서는 18일 영업용 택시안에서. 딱 보니 여자친구 없는지 오래된거 같은데 집에가서 야동보고 딸치는거 아니냐고 그러더라. Female fake 공공 장소에서 택시 운전사와 섹스하고 택시 택시에서 내 보지를 자위하고. 넌 어디서까지 해봤니 여승객 당황케 한 운전하며 자위행위. 멕시코 택시 운전기사가 여성 승객이 탔음에도 음란행위를 계속한 영상이 공개돼 논란이 되고 있다.
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.
붐업영상 여성승객 뒤에 태우고 음란행위한 택시기사 경악., Human Rights Watch’s 36th annual review of human rights practices and trends around the globe, reviews developments in more than 100 countries.