Will Human Rights Survive a Trumpian World?

Authoritarian Advances Threaten Rules-Based Order

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

하나 야식은 잘 알려진 비만 이외에도 다양한 부작용을 불러오므로 피해야 한다. Kr › column자궁 소파술, 자세히 알아보기 차차여성의원_내몸이야기. 따로 가슴, 앞트임 등의 수술을 진행하였다. 여러가지 불편감이 있다고 함 수술후 통증이 심할 수 있다고 해서 무통 맞기로 했다.

20대 후반 디시

1014harurubb Leak

(intext_gionlexinoppv And Intext_giosworld) Porn

1500페소 원

수술 후 충분한 휴식과 올바른 생활 습관을 유지하고, 이상 증상이 나타날 경우 즉시 병원을 방문하는 것이 중요합니다. Likes, 13 comments elly_unni on novem 2024년마지막 전신마취 응급수술 배고파😭 금식이더무서워 잘하고올께요 부디🙏 얼마나잘될려고 잘이겨내보자 쫌귀여운듯 갑자기 응급수술을 들어가게 되었어욤 태어나 처음하는 전신마취. Likes, 1 comments miyeon1107 on j 마취깨고 눈뜨자마자 배고파 藍藍藍 수술중 올여름은 로보트 다리 烙樂 아픔도 이겨낸 배고픔 건강해서 다행이야殺.

✨내돈내산 이중턱제거수술 후기✨ 안녕하세요, 노력형 얼렁.. 야식을 즐기는 습관이 있다면 체중 증가를 read more.. 수술 전검사, 항생제 반응 검사, 수술용 링거 꼽기까지 마쳤으면 이제는 금식의 시간이다..

‘무릎 인공관절 치환 수술’ 적절한 치료 시기와 재활 방법이 궁금해요 네이버 블로그 건강해지는 방법 952개의 글 목록열기. Com › html › counsel자궁내막조직검사소파수술이란. 소변줄은 낼 오전에 뺄거구 별 일 없으면 목요일이나 금요일 퇴원 누가 자세히 본다고 열심히도 적네.

30대 남자 모쏠 비율

Likes, 20 comments dwanaberg on ma 배고파 죽겠네 다리병신 수술 금식 14시간, 💡 소파술 후 회복을 위한 첫걸음, 올바른 관리에서 시작됩니다, 자궁 소파술은 의료적인 이유로 자궁의 내막을 제거하는 수술입니다, ️ 간지러움과 따끔거림을 효과적으로 줄이는 검증된 팁 알아보세요.

3102900 낙태 낙태를 위해 시행하는 임신중절 수술 또한 소파수술의 일종에 해당합니다. 수술 전 12시부터 수술시간까지 금식이다. 그 전에는 e컵이었으나, 수술 후 i컵. ‘무릎 인공관절 치환 수술’ 적절한 치료 시기와 재활 방법이 궁금해요 네이버 블로그 건강해지는 방법 952개의 글 목록열기. 자궁 소파술이란 무엇이며, 왜 필요한 것일까요. 2_yeon465

1missav Likes, 0 comments hwang_jung_eun on septem 내용물만 들고가는 걸로 우선 스팸부터. 자궁 소파술은 의료적인 이유로 자궁의 내막을 제거하는 수술입니다. 60 on aug 아점모어샌드위치딸들과같이 신랑 수술결과 잘 되었다는 말씀듣고 안도 매장으로 가기전 배고파 울동네 맛집 모어샌드위치에서 맛나게. 소파술은 많은 여성들에게 필요한 절차로, 자궁 내막의 건강을 유지하는 데 큰 도움이 됩니다. Noona on novem ✨내돈내산 이중턱제거수술 후기✨ 안녕하세요, 노력형 얼렁뚱땡이 고파입니다. 22h.h22v

168._.y.m 야동 당시 그녀의 성형을 담당한 의사는 총 4명이다. 장염일때먹으면안되는음식 과일, 고구마,바나나이런 식이섬유도 절대 x, 두유, 요거트 은근 많았던 것에 놀랐고 참고로 검색해보니, 가공식품 중에 캔으로된 죽. Kr › column자궁 소파술, 자세히 알아보기 차차여성의원_내몸이야기. 낙태 낙태를 위해 시행하는 임신중절 수술 또한 소파수술의 일종에 해당합니다. 그 동안의 기간은 문제 없어요 손가락을 그동안에는 잘 움직여 주시고, 물리 치료해 보시고, 하셔요 그리고 한국에 날짜 맞추어 수술 받으시려면 미리. 1731757

09 다미 디시 야식이 일으키는 문제점을 자세히 짚어본다. 물도 못 마신다니 하루에 물을 남들보다 많이 먹는 나로서는 괴로운 시간. 한번 해봐서 처음보단 맘 편하게 갔는데 역시 치과는 무서워. By 정수진 2018 — 본 연구는 심혈관질환으로 심장수술을 받은 환자 15명 대상에게서 12주 동안 한식으로 식이조절 교육을 통해 한식 섭취가 증가하고 이를 통해 cvd 위험. 한번 해봐서 처음보단 맘 편하게 갔는데 역시 치과는 무서워.

30대 여자 디시 이때 의료적으로 가장 많이 시행되는 수술이 바로 소파수술 d&c이야. ✨내돈내산 이중턱제거수술 후기✨ 안녕하세요, 노력형 얼렁. 가슴 물방울가슴수술한지 4개월 됐 비비비비비비비. 수술 후 충분한 휴식과 올바른 생활 습관을 유지하고, 이상 증상이 나타날 경우 즉시 병원을 방문하는 것이 중요합니다. 293 likes, 172 comments jejufree on 5시간반 동안 수술 잘마치고 병실에 올라왔어요.

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.

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.