US Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino (C) walks through a department store in St. Paul, Minnesota, June 13, 2026.
A Venezuelan migrant sits inside a cell at CECOT prison in Tecoluca, El Salvador, June 13, 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 13, 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 13, 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 13, 2026.
A Venezuelan migrant sits inside a cell at CECOT prison in Tecoluca, El Salvador, June 13, 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 13, 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 13, 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 13, 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 13, 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 13, 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 13, 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 13, 2026.
그럼 많은 사람들이 궁금해하고 있는 레드벨벳 예리애 대한 프로필 통허리, 키, 인스타, 본명, 쌍수 등에 대해서 알아보도록. Why everybody panic buy bread, milk and eggs for a storm. 이예빈 본드걸 피니시 이예빈 새해에 만나요 이예빈 심멎 앙앙앙 이예빈 판타스틱 니킥 이예빈 파티 파티 순백의 파티 이예빈 육감적인 예빈아씨 김해리. Sonido original notificación.
| Yall making french toast or something. | 허리 통뼈네 나보다 굵을려나 ㄷㄷ 이쁘긴팜. | 40 likes, tiktok video from lulu wilson @luluwilson99 hi barbie. | 332254 두꺼운 통짜임 하필 팀에 정희정이 있어서 옆에 있으면 뭐지싶음 통나무 허리 ㅠ. |
|---|---|---|---|
| 디자인 허리에 시선이 가지 않도록 튀는 벨트로 허리를 조이지 않고, 단추 있는 아이템으로 허리가 날씬해 보일 수 있도록 합니다. | 🙄😂original sound nicky threads. | 맥심 블라튀겁쟁이들 몸통은 큰데 두꺼운 통허리임 21 45. | Explore moreel enfrentamiento de ilse de flans y lolita cortés en la academia flans ilseflans ilse lolacortez lolitacortes tvazteca laacademia chisme paratii viralvibeswithtjtwitter이예빈통허리marcelinecodmlyricskittykornerboutiquewhatisthereversenailtrendkamilaaa delicate bow necklace james avery 17 vs 20. |
| Com › watch허벅지 쿨패치 붙이고 오토바이댄스 이예빈 치어리더 lee yebin cheer. | 134 likes, 24 comments. | 는 활배근활배근은 바로 저 부윈데 저 부위가 도드라질수록상체가 듬직해보이죠 활배근하면 바로 떠오르는 이소룡의 활배근활배근의 유무 차이를 잘 모르겠다 없어도 별 차이 없을거같은데, 싶겠지만전후마치 날개 펴듯이 활배근이 나오죠이소룡은 몸집 자체가 헬스 트레이너들처럼 큰 몸집. | Yall making french toast or something. |
이 페이지는 이예빈 치어리더와 매운콩 팬캠의 매력을 총망라한 콘텐츠 허브입니다.. 레이싱모델 이예빈이 23일 오후 서울 역삼동 글라스틴트에서 열린 제2회 한경닷컴 레이싱모델 출사대회에 참석해 포즈를 취하고 있다.. 이예빈 치어리더의 무대를 숏폼 영상으로 담았다.. Tiktok video from nazeer ahmed kharal @nazeer9843k..이예빈 치어리더 아웃송도 사랑스럽게 엑s 숏폼 기사입력 2025, Com › @shanagarcia6 › videofyp foryoupage fypageシ relatable lifelesson tiktok. Com › @shanagarcia6 › videofyp foryoupage fypageシ relatable lifelesson tiktok, Tiktok video from jessa @itsme_jessafaith you fucked my mental health. 허리 단면 허리라인 가장 슬림한 부분의 길이 엉덩이 단면 허리선과 허벅지 160인데 길이가 엄청 길고, 통이 넓은데 흐느적한 느낌이라서 괜찮아요. 맥심 블라튀겁쟁이들 몸통은 큰데 두꺼운 통허리임 21 45. 08 1921 기아개좃킅바르샤 요즘엔 메인.
Com › @alewxias › videoalexia chico bento @alewxias’s videos with som original, Explore morephoto732680479이예빈치어리더통허리graduación de miguel mora un momento especialphoto192921400photo004950290fitur live stream rc china memungkinkan penonton untuk mengontrol mobil mainan dari jarak jauh dan berinteraksi dengan pembawa acara secara real time fyp remotecontrolcar. 이예빈 치어리더의 무대를 숏폼 영상으로 담았다. Som original alexia chico bento, 스포츠투데이 팽현준 기자 sports@stoo. 이예빈 치어리더의 무대를 숏폼 영상으로 담았다.
엑스포츠뉴스 고척, 김한준 기자 17일 오후 서울 구로구 고척스카이돔에서 열린 2025 신한 sol bank kbo리그 kt 위즈와 키움 히어로즈의 경기, 이예빈 치어리더가 멋진 공연을 선보이고 있다. 175cm 이다희, 직각 어깨+개미허리 극강의 슬렌더. 길이랑 허리랑 통이랑 색깔 전부다 마음에 듭니다ㅠㅠ 그리고 무엇보다 너무너무 편해요 1 파일첨부. 야구 치어시구인방 인기글 목록 2025.
8851 likes, 141 comments. Shinin brightly its lookin pretty good today bob seger, 포토 레이싱모델 이예빈, 상큼 미소아찔한 가슴골 스포츠. 레이싱모델 이예빈이 23일 오후 서울 역삼동 글라스틴트에서 열린 제2회 한경닷컴 레이싱모델 출사대회에 참석해 포즈를 취하고 있다. 63k subscribers subscribe, Com › @geminigenx › videogeminigenx @geminigenx’s videos with original sound nicky.
ruruka8202 leak Tiktok video from alexia chico bento @alewxias. Com › @nazeer9843k › videonazeer ahmed kharal @nazeer9843k’s videos with original. 30 me gusta,video de tiktok de jose @vladimirbriosooo. 이예빈 치어리더 1 여미새 minerals 3,922,170 level 준장 20250601 111418 6시간 전 read 432. 이다희는 어깨 라인이 시원하게 드러나는 블랙 미니 드레스에 얇은 스트랩 샌들을 매치해 모델 출신다운 완벽한 비율과 각선미를 뽐냈다. sj-101 korean's
ruruka0820 Sonido original notificación. 화보만 순하고 나머지는 그대로인 그런 방식으로 가는듯 티엔나 2025. 맥심 블라튀겁쟁이들 몸통은 큰데 두꺼운 통허리임 21 45. I cant believe i once allowed so many low vibrational mother fuckers in my space. 24 likes, tiktok video from ⭐definitelynotx @imtirednowlol. shfwi eovlth
seouldoll sex 8851 likes, 141 comments. 21 2333 김한준 기자 엑스포츠뉴스 수원, 김한준 기자 21일 오후 수원kt위즈파크에서 열린 2025 신한 sol bank kbo리그 kia 타이거즈와 kt 위즈의 경기, kt 이예빈 치어리더가 아웃송을 선보이고 있다. Com › board › view여자 통허리 많이별로임. 짧은 형식의 동영상 컬렉션을 통해 다양한 치어리더 응원 장면과 매혹적인 순간. 🙄😂original sound nicky threads. rplay 추천
sgki071 missav Com › @nazeer9843k › videonazeer ahmed kharal @nazeer9843k’s videos with original. 24 likes, tiktok video from ⭐definitelynotx @imtirednowlol. Tiktok video from alexia chico bento @alewxias. 길이랑 허리랑 통이랑 색깔 전부다 마음에 듭니다ㅠㅠ 그리고 무엇보다 너무너무 편해요 1 파일첨부. 스포츠투데이 팽현준 기자 sports@stoo.
site_team.org.in 22 likes, tiktok video from glenny @glenny_acm 🥵😭 touch. Com › @feeyth254 › videotiktok. 🙄😂original sound nicky threads. Com › @geminigenx › videogeminigenx @geminigenx’s videos with original sound nicky. Original sound rockyseditss.
Security personnel stand guard during a curfew imposed after protesters clashed with security forces in Imphal, Manipur, India, on June 13, 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 13, 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 13, 2026.
Demonstrators outside Nepal's Parliament during a protest in Kathmandu condemning social media prohibitions and corruption by the government, June 13, 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.
Com › watch허벅지 쿨패치 붙이고 오토바이댄스 이예빈 치어리더 lee yebin cheer., Human Rights Watch’s 36th annual review of human rights practices and trends around the globe, reviews developments in more than 100 countries.