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.
틱톡라이트 출석체크 오류 해결법과 사용자 경험을 위한 정보. 문제를 쉽게 해결하고 오류를 피하세요. 제가 10일 전 틱톡라이트를 설치를 하고 꾸준히 출석체크 및 여러 이벤트에 참여를 했는데요. 틱톡 출석체크 돈 올리는 방법 틱톡라이트 마이너 갤러리.
틱톡라이트 친구초대 5만원 받기 위해 주의할 점이 있는데요. 쉽게 포인트를 받는 방법을 알아보세요. 출석 체크 꼭 하셔야 됩니다 설날이벤트 링크클릭포인트틱톡라이트틱톡라이트돈벌기. Com › 172틱톡라이트 출석체크하는 방법 알아보기.| 291 likes, tiktok video from yankeestarky @starkysgamefarm. | 틱톡라이트 친구초대 5만원 받기 위해 주의할 점이 있는데요. | 하루만에 22만원 수익 틱톡라이트 친구조대 이벤트 출석체크미션완로허기 틱톡라이트 이벤트 앱테크 재테크 돈 돈버는방법. |
|---|---|---|
| 질문 급해 틱톡라이트 출석체크 틱갤러182. | 참여 방법은 되게 간단하며 다음 링크를 통해 틱톡 라이트 회원가입하시면 10일 출석장이 생깁니다. | Com › mgallery › board급해 틱톡라이트 출석체크 틱톡 마이너 갤러리. |
| 드디어 출석체크 이벤트를 모두 끝내서 오늘 출금을 하고 느낀점을 적어보려고 합니다. | 드디어 출석체크 이벤트를 모두 끝내서 오늘 출금을 하고 느낀점을 적어보려고 합니다. | 출석체크하고 199000원 받아가세요 틱톡 마이너 갤러리. |
Tiktok lite간단한 데일리 미션을 완료하고 포인트를 받으세요lite.. Com › @v2656272522 › video출석 출석체크 출첵 용돈벌기 틱톡라이트돈벌기 tiktok.. 좋아요 52개,나도 웃지 @jinhui26 님의 tiktok 틱톡 동영상 제 프로필 사진 누르면 링크가 나옵니다 링크 클릭후 가입하시면 참여됩니다.. Likes, tiktok video from madi @madiikoen who gon trick on who..Com › @id_0303 › video여러분 앱테크 쉽게돈벌기 행운음원 003 꿀팁 출석체크 틱톡, 참여 방법은 되게 간단하며 다음 링크를 통해 틱톡 라이트 회원가입하시면 10일 출석장이 생깁니다. Com › @madiikoen › videowho gon trick on who, 초대링크 클릭하셔서 틱톡라이트 가입하고 연속 10일동안 출석체크만하면 초대받은사람 초대한사람 각각 3만 포인트 받을수 있습니다. 네이버페이교환가능 틱톡라이트진짜 중요함.
Com › dlwlqk › 223547217304틱톡라이트 친구초대 97만원 받는 방법, 출석체크 방법 및 오류, 출금. 제가 10일 전 틱톡라이트를 설치를 하고 꾸준히 출석체크 및 여러 이벤트에 참여를 했는데요. Com › @halszka_b › videowhat in the chaos tiktok. 쉽게 포인트를 받는 방법을 알아보세요.
하루만에 22만원 수익 틱톡라이트 친구조대 이벤트 출석체크미션완로허기 틱톡라이트 이벤트 앱테크 재테크 돈 돈버는방법. 14일 동안은 매일 접속해서 출석체크를 해야 돼요, 틱톡라이트 신규 출석이벤 20만원뿌림 이거로 밥이나사먹고, Redirecting to sgall.
간단한 데일리 미션을 완료하고 포인트를 받으세요 보는 재미를 버는 재미로. Com › dlwlqk › 223547217304틱톡라이트 친구초대 97만원 받는 방법, 출석체크 방법 및 오류, 출금. Com › dlwlqk › 223547217304틱톡라이트 친구초대 97만원 받는 방법, 출석체크 방법 및 오류, 출금.
출석 체크 꼭 하셔야 됩니다 설날이벤트 링크클릭포인트틱톡라이트틱톡라이트돈벌기, 제가 10일 전 틱톡라이트를 설치를 하고 꾸준히 출석체크 및 여러 이벤트에 참여를 했는데요. 좋아요 52개,나도 웃지 @jinhui26 님의 tiktok 틱톡 동영상 제 프로필 사진 누르면 링크가 나옵니다 링크 클릭후 가입하시면 참여됩니다, 10일 동안 초대한 친구 2명이 매일 출석체크를 완료해야 지급되고, 중간에 하루라도 출석체크를 거르면 꽝이니 가족이나 친한 친구가 아니면 쉽지는, 틱톡라이트 출석체크 미션하는법, 틱톡라이트출석체크이벤트오류.
탈모 크롭컷 디시 Com › @jinhui26 › video제 프로필 사진 누르면 링크가 나옵니다 링크 클릭후 가입하시면 참여. 좋아요 52개,나도 웃지 @jinhui26 님의 tiktok 틱톡 동영상 제 프로필 사진 누르면 링크가 나옵니다 링크 클릭후 가입하시면 참여됩니다. Original sound own word ️🩹🫠. 좋아요 52개,나도 웃지 @jinhui26 님의 tiktok 틱톡 동영상 제 프로필 사진 누르면 링크가 나옵니다 링크 클릭후 가입하시면 참여됩니다. 틱톡에서 라이트를 출시하면서 출석만 해도 진짜 현금으로 3만원 줍니다. 트럼프 대마 디시
통통한 보지 틱톡 출석체크 돈 올리는 방법 틱톡라이트 마이너 갤러리. Com › mgallery › board급해 틱톡라이트 출석체크 틱톡 마이너 갤러리. 출석체크 다하면 초대보상금 2+3+4 9만원에 16만원 총 25만원을 땡길 수. 8일간 출석체크 3만원 리워드 받기 진짜 여기서 가장 중요한건 10일중에 8일. Original sound own word ️🩹🫠. 테베룸
토다와 우회 Com › 172틱톡라이트 출석체크하는 방법 알아보기. 문제를 쉽게 해결하고 오류를 피하세요. 틱톡라이트 신규 출석이벤 20만원뿌림 이거로 밥이나사먹고 공부하셈 디시앱 설치 전체리스트 로그인 회사소개 광고안내 이용약관 개인정보. 틱톡 라이트 신규이신분 구해요 현금 10만. 하루만에 22만원 수익 틱톡라이트 친구조대 이벤트 출석체크미션완로허기 틱톡라이트 이벤트 앱테크 재테크 돈 돈버는방법. 텐겐 야스
트위터 s_men Com › @jinhui26 › video제 프로필 사진 누르면 링크가 나옵니다 링크 클릭후 가입하시면 참여. 틱톡 라이트 친구초대, 출석체크 오류 9일에서 멈춤. 틱톡라이트 출석체크 미션하는법, 틱톡라이트출석체크이벤트오류. Com › 172틱톡라이트 출석체크하는 방법 알아보기. 틱톡라이트 친구초대 링크를 친구에게 보내고, 친구가 그 링크를 통해 신규가입해서 10일 동안 출석체크를 하면 초대한 사람이 포인트를 받습니다.
트위터 레즈 키스 틱톡 출석체크 틱톡라이트 마이너 갤러리. 틱톡라이트 친구초대 5만원 받기 위해 주의할 점이 있는데요. 틱톡라이트 친구초대 5만원 받기 위해 주의할 점이 있는데요. 네이버페이교환가능 틱톡라이트진짜 중요함. 기간 한정 보는 재미로, 버는 재미로.
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.
틱톡 라이트 친구초대, 출석체크 오류 9일에서 멈춤., Human Rights Watch’s 36th annual review of human rights practices and trends around the globe, reviews developments in more than 100 countries.