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.

여성의 몸매나 골격에 잘 들어지 않아 힘들다. Sonido original karen sosa. 430 likes, 53 comments. 부치미 패션 2 구매후기&이벤트후기 daum 카페.

힡미

티부 뜻 티나는 부치butch로 남자다움이 느껴지는 것 의미한다 여자든 남자든 보이시하거나, 남자다움이 느껴지고 이게 티나면.. 부치 가문은 18세기부터 카스텔리 디 예지 지역에 속한 몬테카로토 montecarotto에서 농사를 지어왔다..

히토미 별이삼샵

히토미 아들

이 스타일은 과감한 색상 조합과 다채로운 패턴을 활용하여 독창적인 룩을 완성하는 것이 특징입니다, Com › @onisland › post언젠가 우리가 사랑했던 부치들 온, 섬. Film użytkownika marunchak @marunchak15 na tiktoku „🇮🇪, 청담동 스캔들 유지인 氏가 착용한 루비 반지, 목걸이, 귀걸이 세트. 4747 ถูกใจ,43 ความคิดเห็นวิดีโอ tiktok จาก พี่เห็ดผู้ชื่นชอบของน่ารัก @mushroomclub ไปพบสุดยอดพิซซ่า ddc ที่เอกมัย แป้งนุ่มหนึบและเข้มข้น ห้ามพลาด.

Kr › seoul › ko부치 스타일에 대한 조언 timeoutkorea, 그 동안 부치는 천연보석을 활용한 선이 굵고 볼륨감 있는 1418k 패션주얼리 제품을 주력으로 성장해 왔다, 우리나라에는 민부치 smoky seabat, halieutaea fumosa와 빨강부치 starry handfish, h. 🤭🤭🤭🤭 she’s so hottttttsonido original nicol simancas 😘.

부치 batfish, seabat 파일붉은입술부치.. 언니네트워크 부치소모임 ‘부치티타임’은 8월 24일자로, 올해의 두번째 정기 모임을 가졌습니다.. 진화하면 금 목걸이와 가슴압박붕대 일수가방, 짧은 스포츠머리가 추가되기도.. 부치butch는 레즈비언, 게이, 양성애자, 트랜스젠더, 크로스드레싱과 같은 성소수자 커뮤니티에서 중요한 문화적 정체성 중 하나로 자리 잡고 있습니다..

Pinterest에서 부치 패션에 관한 아이디어를 찾고 저장하세요. 430 likes, 53 comments, 부치 bucci는 마르케의 카스텔리 디 예지 castelli di jesi에 위치한 와이너리로 1983년 암펠리오 부치 ampelio bucci에 의해 설립되었다.

Jpg 사진은 붉은입술부치redlipped batfish. 부치 스타일은 독특하고 신비로운 분위기를 연출하는 새로운 패션 트렌드를 의미합니다, 이는 단순히 성적 지향을 넘어서 사회적, 문화적 정체성을 포괄하는 개념입니다. Introduction 부치 buchi 이야기 피팅에 대한 명확한 이유와 목적이 분명한 bespoke golf factory bgf 골프피팅센터입니다.

히토미 블루록 이런 흐름에 발맞춰 패션주얼리 전문업체 부치 boochi 대표 이재홍가 순금 제품의 패션화에 나섰다. 여자들의 동성애에서 능동적이고 상대를 리드하는 쪽을 부치butch라고 이른다. Sonido original karen sosa. 특히, 여성 동성애자들 사이에서 부치는 능동적이고 상대를 리드하는 역할을 담당하는 인물로, 이는 종종 중성적이거나 남성적인. 나센스님의 저렴한 가격에 예쁜티 또 득템했어요 오늘 자전거 라이딩 했는데 이뿌지후님의 가방메고 부치미 패션으로 싱싱 라이딩 ㅎ. 히토미popular

히티드 해연 Tiktok video from cyntheabsolutesolver @indira. Butch 부치사전 레인보우링을 찾아라. 다양한 부치 패션 아이템과 코디 추천을 통해 나만의 스타일을 찾으세요. Film użytkownika marunchak @marunchak15 na tiktoku „🇮🇪. 부치butch는 레즈비언, 게이, 양성애자, 트랜스젠더, 크로스드레싱과 같은 성소수자 커뮤니티에서 중요한 문화적 정체성 중 하나로 자리 잡고 있습니다. 히토미 퍼리

히토미 학교 최면 여자들의 동성애에서 능동적이고 상대를 리드하는 쪽을 부치butch라고 이른다. Com › withsafe › 223204492897부치, 베르디끼오 데이 카스텔리 디 예지 클라시코 수페리오레 2019 b. 동묘 아재 패션에 영감받은 세계적인 패션 디자이너 의상이 눈길을 끌고 있다. 오늘은 새로운 브랜드의 클럽을 소개하려고 합니다. 부치 t22m 모델은 머슬백의 중간 부분의 두께를 얇게 해서 캐비티 아이언에 버금가는 용이함을 실현했다고 하네요. 히토미 편리한 구멍

히토미 집착 상냥한추천 패션잡지처럼 보이기도 하고 콜라주 기법을 쓴. 긴머부 긴 머리 부치, 머리가 긴 부치. 바지 속에 양말과 호두로 남성의 성기모양처럼 비슷하게 만들어서 넣고 다니는 사람. 단머부 단발머리 부치, 즉 머리가 단발인 부치. 포엣 코어는 시인poet에서 출발한 패션 & 라이프스타일 감성을 의미해요.

히토미숫자 포엣 코어는 시인poet에서 출발한 패션 & 라이프스타일 감성을 의미해요. 고정관념적으로, 부치들은 펨과의 관계에서 지배적인. 패션잡지처럼 보이기도 하고 콜라주 기법을 쓴 애니메이션처럼 보이기도 하는 신박한 책이 들어왔습니다. Butch 부치사전 레인보우링을 찾아라. 오늘은 새로운 브랜드의 클럽을 소개하려고 합니다.

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.