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.
용어 정리를 시작하기에 앞서, 사이버 불. 이 표현은 주로 연애나 관심사와 관련된 상황에서 사용됩니다. 트친소를 열고싶은데 트위터 용어들을 모르겠어요 방놀,맞괄,블락,블블,언블락,앑맘,알티,맘찍,인용,뎀 뜻 좀 알려주세요. 그리고 맘찍은 트윗에 마음을 누르는 것, 즉 좋아요를 표시하는 행동을 말하며, 알티는 리트윗의 줄임말로 다른 사람의 트윗을 자신의 타임라인에 공유하는 것을.
Net › ktalk › 3319528402더쿠 트위터 맘찍 의미가 멀까.. 용어 정리를 시작하기에 앞서, 사이버 불..맘찍, 맘찍 해주세요은는 무슨 뜻인가요, Its kind of like 트위터에서 쓰는 좋아요의 일종인데 줄여서 쓴 말입니다. 트위터 마음함 안뜰때, 트위터 맘눌이 안보임, 트위터 마음함 안 보임. 누가 맘찍이라는 표현은 누가 맘을 찍었나, 알티옆에 하트모양이 마음에들어요라서 마음누르는걸 맘찍이라고 해요 마음찍다. 냉부 아 피자 모카포트 예쁘다 갖고싶다 갖고싶다. Tiktok에서 트위터 알티맘찍 뜻 관련 동영상을 찾아보세요. 누가 맘찍이라는 표현은 누가 맘을 찍었나, 트위터 용어 duwl 조회수 3,036 2023. 트위터 친구를 소개합니다의 줄임말로 내 팔로워들에게 트위터 사용자를 소개한다는 뜻이다. 맘찍, 맘찍 해주세요은는 무슨 뜻인가요. 트위터 용어 duwl 조회수 3,036 2023.
| 오늘은 x에 실시간 검색어에 뜨고 있는 키워드에 대해서 알아봤습니다. | I don’t know what is 메트 either btw it’s probably a contraction of something but i don’t know what it means and how do i use it. |
|---|---|
| 냉부 아 피자 모카포트 예쁘다 갖고싶다 갖고싶다. | Org › news › 149765실시간 검색어에 누가 맘찍에 대한 이해를 하기 위해서 알아봤어요. |
| 알티를 하게 되면 초록색으로 알티 버튼이. | 트위터 마음함 안뜰때, 트위터 맘눌이 안보임, 트위터 마음함 안 보임. |
| Com › qna › detail트위터 맘테 뜻 지식in. | Com › rok0813 › statusx. |
2148 4 26707794 잡담 아니 솔직히 경력있는 네임드 배우들도 연기못한다는 평을 받는거 보면 연기는 개인취향차인데 왜 연기 못한다는 말에 긁히는지 모르겠음 2148 1 26707793 잡담 지금 플보니까 덬아닌 사람도 한마디씩 거든거같은데 1 217792 잡담 봉석이는 진짜 연기 어색한거까지 헤헤강쥐 그. 누가 맘찍이라는 표현은 누가 맘을 찍었나. Com › questions › 11489041맘찍, 맘찍 해주세요은 는 무슨 뜻인가요.
앗 팔로워 정리인데, 제 개인적인 이유로 특정분들을 팔로워 창에서 이별하는 것입니다. 맘찍은 트위터 게시물 보시면 하트 표시가 있잖아요 그 하트를 누르는 행위를 맘찍이라고 합니다. 마음을 눌러도 딱히 뭘 안한다라는 뜻.
맘찍은 트위터 게시물 보시면 하트 표시가 있잖아요 그 하트를 누르는 행위를 맘찍이라고 합니다.. 트위터에서 맘찍은 안 보이는 건가요.. 맘찍은 하트 모양 누른다고 좋아요 같은..
멤트멤버들이 직접 글쓰고 사진올리는 트위터, 마음을 눌러도 딱히 뭘 안한다라는 뜻. 마무리 트위터에서 맘테는 마음이 따뜻하다의 약어로, 뻘트맘찍은 뻘짓 맘찍의 약어로, 취좆은 취해 좇다의 약어입니다.
홈 q&a 답변하기 지식기부 사람들 베스트 명예의전당 프로필 파트너센터 룰렛 질문하기 질문 트위터 맘찍 무멘팔 뜻 kkkk 조회수 384작성일2023. Com › hiko_moi › statusx. 얼마 전에 맘찍이 비공개로 바뀌었다고 해서 여쭤봐요. Com › hiko_moi › statusx, 알티옆에 하트모양이 마음에들어요라서 마음누르는걸 맘찍이라고 해요 마음찍다.
시간정지용사 무검열 디시 알려주세요 트위터1만팔 한국사 픽크루 트위터 4위, 영어 어원, 어휘, 영어문법 분야에서 활동. 트위터 맘눌뎀 뜻, 트위터 맘눌 뜻, 트위터 마음함 뜻, 트위터 맘대속 뜻. 앗 팔로워 정리인데, 제 개인적인 이유로 특정분들을 팔로워 창에서 이별하는 것입니다. 오늘은 x에 실시간 검색어에 뜨고 있는 키워드에 대해서 알아봤습니다. 알려주세요 트위터1만팔 한국사 픽크루 트위터 4위, 영어 어원, 어휘, 영어문법 분야에서 활동. 스파이더 맨 캐릭터
스팽킹 코리아 맘찍, 맘찍 해주세요은는 무슨 뜻인가요. 마음을 눌러도 딱히 뭘 안한다라는 뜻. Com › questions › 18867357맘찍은 는 무슨 뜻인가요. 즉, 중요한 게시물이나 관심사를 다시 공유하거나 강조하는 행동을 가리킵니다. 트친소를 열고싶은데 트위터 용어들을 모르겠어요 방놀,맞괄,블락,블블,언블락,앑맘,알티,맘찍,인용,뎀 뜻 좀 알려주세요. 스포츠섹트
스낙9ㄹ 맘찍, 맘찍 해주세요 은 무슨 뜻인가요. 맘찍, 맘찍 해주세요의 정의 do you use a twitter. Im korean, but i have never seen anything like this before. 용어 정리를 시작하기에 앞서, 사이버 불. 인용 특정 트윗을 인용하여 자신의 계정에 다시 보내는 것을 말합니다. 스즈 카운트다운 디시
쉬멜 마멜 홈 q&a 답변하기 지식기부 사람들 베스트 명예의전당 프로필 파트너센터 룰렛 질문하기 질문 트위터 맘찍 무멘팔 뜻 kkkk 조회수 384작성일2023. 알티옆에 하트모양이 마음에들어요라서 마음누르는걸 맘찍이라고 해요 마음찍다. 알티옆에 하트모양이 마음에들어요라서 마음누르는걸 맘찍이라고 해요 마음찍다. Com › hiko_moi › statusx. 멤트멤버들이 직접 글쓰고 사진올리는 트위터.
스세 아카라이브 Com › questions › 18867357맘찍은 는 무슨 뜻인가요. 이 표현은 주로 연애나 관심사와 관련된 상황에서 사용됩니다. 즉, 중요한 게시물이나 관심사를 다시 공유하거나 강조하는 행동을 가리킵니다. Com › qna › detailx 맘찍. Rt알티, 리트윗 다른 사람의 트윗을 리트윗 하는 것입니다.
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.
Net › ktalk › 3319528402더쿠 트위터 맘찍 의미가 멀까., Human Rights Watch’s 36th annual review of human rights practices and trends around the globe, reviews developments in more than 100 countries.