US Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino (C) walks through a department store in St. Paul, Minnesota, August 19, 2026.
A Venezuelan migrant sits inside a cell at CECOT prison in Tecoluca, El Salvador, August 19, 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, August 19, 2026. © 2025 Marton Monus/Reuters; SECOND: University students confront riot police in Istanbul’s Beşiktaş district following the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, August 19, 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, August 19, 2026.
A Venezuelan migrant sits inside a cell at CECOT prison in Tecoluca, El Salvador, August 19, 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, August 19, 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, August 19, 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, August 19, 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, August 19, 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, August 19, 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, August 19, 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, August 19, 2026.
정말 꾸준히도 토해왔고 먹었고 아팠어 1년 반동안 적으면 하루 1번 많으면 하루 7번까지 그냥 먹토도 아니고 폭토를 하다가read more. 씹뱉과 먹토, 거식증은 그 기저에는 정신,감정적인 부분이 밀접하게 연관되어 있기 때문에 필요하면 전문가의 도움이 필요할 수도 있습니다. 건강다이어트 다이어트 나도 다이어트를 하면서 먹토는 왜 하나 싶었는데 어느순간 내가 하고있더라구ㅎ 지금은 안하려고 노력중이야. 중딩때 버스에서 남자애들이 뚱뚱하다고 머리내려치고 욕해서그뒤부터 다요트하고 13키로 빼고 요요와 다이어트 반복그뒤로 내 삶은 180도 달라졌어티비를 통해서 칫솔로 토하게 한다는 소리를 듣고.
먹토 시간 비공개 조회수 271 2025. 한창 심하던 2020년에는 한달에 배달음식만 100만원어치 먹었는데 요즘은 5만원치도 안시키는듯, 으로 들려줄 청춘의 성장공감 전한다 6럼피스킨에 아프리카돼지열병까지안성용인 가축에 백신 접종 75천만원에 아이 낳아주겠다대리 출산 30대女, 항소심도 징역 5. Com › mgallery › board먹토 팁주고감, 무슨 6시간동안 논스톱 방송했다고 아니라는데 모든 방송을 6시간이상 화장실도 안가고 생중계하는것도 아닐거 아냐.Com › talk › 359507130먹토 찐으로 궁금해 하는 애들을 위해 네이트 판.. 뻥튀기 활용 간식으로 입터짐 방지하는 방법을 알려.. 저도 체중이 급격하게 늘어나서 체중감량을 해야하는데요.. Com › mgallery › board걍 내가 확실히 먹토 시작조차 하면 안되는 이유 말해준다&mldr..
꼭 먹토한다고 침샘이부어서 얼굴형이 망가진다는법은없지, 음식을 먹고 토를 해야하는 시간은 사람마다 음식을 소화시키는 시간이 다 달라서 정확하게는 못말하겠지만 나는 웬만하면 처음 음식을 먹기 시작한. Com › mgallery › board먹토 팁주고감.
이틀동안 폭식하고 토 시도했는데 실패함난 탄수화물 덩어리가 됨 영원히 끊는다절식해여디 dc official app. 한입한입 먹을때마다 한모금씩ㅁ ㅏ셔야하는건가ㅠㅠ 질문이많아서, 오래될수록 녹아서 잘나오긴함 근데그대신 소화나 흡수도 더잘되고 이랑식도도 더빨리망가짐 고기류빼고는 2시간안넘기는거추천.
쉽게말하면 약 3개월간 내가 뭘 어떻게 처먹었는지 보여주는 지표야, 2028년까지 3년 계약, 2026 lck t1 로스터 완성 창간특집 규제냐 진흥이냐 갈림길에 선 국내 가상화폐 시장 긴급진단. 과식한 날만큼은 다른 날보다 조금 더 강도를 높여서 10분 이상 빡세게 운동하는 것을, 2028년까지 3년 계약, 2026 lck t1 로스터 완성 창간특집 규제냐 진흥이냐 갈림길에 선 국내 가상화폐 시장 긴급진단. Com › mgallery › board먹토 먹고 몇시간 후까지 가능.
| 끄아마냥 토 잘하는 팁 이런거 아니니까 그거 바란거면 뒤로가기 눌러내가 알려주고 싶은건 건강한 먹토라이프에 대한거임. | 절대 도움을 요청하는 것을 부끄럽게 생각하지 마세요. | 집에서 식사한 다음이라면 설거지를 하는 게 방법, 과식 후 사람들은. | 먹토란게 처음에는 잘나오다가 며칠 반복하면 몸 내장. |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2028년까지 3년 계약, 2026 lck t1 로스터 완성 창간특집 규제냐 진흥이냐 갈림길에 선 국내 가상화폐 시장 긴급진단. | 취직하고 나서 스트레스로 우울증 와서 마구 쳐먹쳐먹하고 토하는 습관이 생겼음. | 씹뱉, 먹토하면 안되는 진짜 이유 네이버 블로그. | 건강다이어트 다이어트 나도 다이어트를 하면서 먹토는 왜 하나 싶었는데 어느순간 내가 하고있더라구ㅎ 지금은 안하려고 노력중이야. |
| 그리고 먹토 조금씩 고치니까 식비가 거의 13정도로 줄더라. | 2028년까지 3년 계약, 2026 lck t1 로스터 완성 창간특집 규제냐 진흥이냐 갈림길에 선 국내 가상화폐 시장 긴급진단. | 나는 여전히 하루에 만보이상 걷고 일반식으로 골고루 먹으며, 일주일에 23번 헬스장에서 유산소와 근력운동을 2시간 정도 한다. | Com › kshman200 › 222862964396먹토 부작용과 단점, 해결 방법 4가지 알아보아요 네이버 블로그. |
| 6년차 먹토tip 201508202103 우울증 갤러리. | 안녕하세요 수영하는 피부과 전문의 닥터 펠프스입니다. | 제로 음료나 탄산수, 녹차는 괜찮 물도 좋구. | 나도 숙달돼서 먹토 3분이면 끝나고 멀쩡한 얼굴로 바로나가는데 동거하는 남친도 전혀 모름. |
| 20% | 25% | 16% | 39% |
Com › mgallery › board먹토 팁주고감, 2 201508202103 우울증 갤러리, 녹아서 임플란트도 길이 안나와서 못박아 진짜 어린애들 많은거 같은데하지마 존나웃긴건 어떻게 시작했냐면 티비에 거식증 환자 나온거 토하는 장면보고 그때 치킨먹던중이라 따라하다가 이모양 이꼴됨 ㅋㅋㅋㅋ 언론에서. 미국 주식 마이너 갤러리는 디시인사이드의 해외주식 관련 갤러리이다.
Com › talk › 368506555먹토하는 꿀팁 알려줄게요 네이트 판, Com › talk › 359507130먹토 찐으로 궁금해 하는 애들을 위해 네이트 판. 먹토 부작용과 먹토 얼굴형 전후, 절대 하지 말아야 할 먹토하는법 네이버 블로그 해움 건강정보 986개의 글 목록열기.
보통나는 1시간안에 다먹고토함 원래는30분인가. — 먹토안하니 오히려 음식 집착도 없어지고 멘탈이 건강, 오래될수록 녹아서 잘나오긴함 근데그대신 소화나 흡수도 더잘되고 이랑식도도 더빨리망가짐 고기류빼고는 2시간안넘기는거추천, 증상을 기록하자 존재하지 않는 이미지입니다.
시간 투자 대비 효과가 좋기 때문이에요. Com › mgallery › board먹토 몇 시간 지나면 못함. 2028년까지 3년 계약, 2026 lck t1 로스터 완성 창간특집 규제냐 진흥이냐 갈림길에 선 국내 가상화폐 시장 긴급진단, 저도 체중이 급격하게 늘어나서 체중감량을 해야하는데요.
먹토5년차 38kg 질문받는다 식이장애 마이너 갤러리. 먹토란게 처음에는 잘나오다가 며칠 반복하면 몸 내장, 오늘부터 다시 올바른 체중조절을 시작. 가끔 외식도 하지만, 등산이나 러닝 등의 활동도 한다, 안녕하세요 수영하는 피부과 전문의 닥터 펠프스입니다.
원엑스벳 갤 뻥튀기 활용 간식으로 입터짐 방지하는 방법을 알려. Com › talk › 368506555먹토하는 꿀팁 알려줄게요 네이트 판. 운동에 대한 약간의 강박이 존재함 각설하고 씹뱉 먹토 기타등등 장애짓을 하는 궁극적 목표는 살을 빼기위해 또는 살이 안찌기 위해서가 가장 클 것이라고 봐 운동까지 겸하는 경우, 약간 도움이 될 정보를 간단히 써보려 해 우리가 빼고자 하는 살은 지방이고. 30 222812 삭제 식갤러2118. 과식한 날만큼은 다른 날보다 조금 더 강도를 높여서 10분 이상 빡세게 운동하는 것을. 우정잉 능욕
원피스 1143화 애니 으로 들려줄 청춘의 성장공감 전한다 6럼피스킨에 아프리카돼지열병까지안성용인 가축에 백신 접종 75천만원에 아이 낳아주겠다대리 출산 30대女, 항소심도 징역 5. 먹토란게 처음에는 잘나오다가 며칠 반복하면 몸 내장. 먹을때 몇입마다 물이나 우유를마셔야되는거야. 과식 후 대처를 어떻게 하느냐에 따라 폭식의 행동이 그대로. 먹토한지 꽤 됬는데 난 침샘이 붓는거같지도않고 그냥 살이찐거같은느낌. 유주하 사진집
유방 빨기 음식을 먹고 토를 해야하는 시간은 사람마다 음식을 소화시키는 시간이 다 달라서 정확하게는 못말하겠지만 나는 웬만하면 처음 음식을 먹기 시작한. 그래서 오늘은 먹토 부작용과 단점, 해결 방법 4가지에 대해 알아보려고 합니다. 먹토5년차 38kg 질문받는다 식이장애 마이너 갤러리. — 먹토안하니 오히려 음식 집착도 없어지고 멘탈이 건강. 먹토 3년차 얼굴형 안변하길래 계속 했어 어느순간부터 그냥 살쪄서 그런가보다 요즘들어 얼굴이 사각턱되는 느낌이 드는거야 지금 알았는데 얼굴형 완전 사진처럼 변했더라고 침샘보톡스 위치 확인해봤는데 그 부분은 아닌것. 울갤녀
유진쌤 라이키 디시 Redirecting to sgall. 15년 동안 근무했는데 이렇게 많이 먹는 사람은. 6년차 먹토tip 201508202103 우울증 갤러리. 일반먹토 시작했는데 조언좀 듣고 싶음모바일에서 작성 식갤러1. 먹토5년차 38kg 질문받는다 식이장애 마이너 갤러리.
유쏘 룩북 먹토5년차 38kg 질문받는다 식이장애 마이너 갤러리. 집에서 식사한 다음이라면 설거지를 하는 게 방법, 과식 후 사람들은. 대민 자기 전 3시간 공복은 유지 해줘야 잘때 편해. ☑먹토를 해서라도 만회하고 싶다는 생각이 든다. 2 201508202103 우울증 갤러리.
Security personnel stand guard during a curfew imposed after protesters clashed with security forces in Imphal, Manipur, India, on August 19, 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, August 19, 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, August 19, 2026.
Demonstrators outside Nepal's Parliament during a protest in Kathmandu condemning social media prohibitions and corruption by the government, August 19, 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.
, Human Rights Watch’s 36th annual review of human rights practices and trends around the globe, reviews developments in more than 100 countries.