US Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino (C) walks through a department store in St. Paul, Minnesota, June 17, 2026.
A Venezuelan migrant sits inside a cell at CECOT prison in Tecoluca, El Salvador, June 17, 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 17, 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 17, 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 17, 2026.
A Venezuelan migrant sits inside a cell at CECOT prison in Tecoluca, El Salvador, June 17, 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 17, 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 17, 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 17, 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 17, 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 17, 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 17, 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 17, 2026.
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바디프로필 2 여성몸매 채널 013. Com › bodychannel_sinchon바디채널 신촌이대역점|신촌헬스장|이대헬스장 @bodychannel_sinch. Bodychannel classic 바디채널 classic은 프리웨이트 중심의 구성과 다양한 운동 목적에 맞춘 고급 머신을 갖춘 퍼포먼스 특화 공간입니다. Kr › branch › 20바디채널 피트니스, Kr › branch › 20바디채널 피트니스.
여러 pt 트레이너들이 있습니다만 여럿 가운데 제대로 된 사람을 찾기 쉽지 않습니다.. 운동하는 도중에도 편리한 환경 덕분에 스트레스 없이 집중할 수 있었답니다.. 부평 24시간 헬스장 바디채널 부평점 장단점 이용 후기.. Png 바디프로필 3 여성몸매 채널 002..
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당신의 건강한 변화를 책임집니다 요즘 헬스장을 고르는 기준이 많이 달라졌어요, 업체 전화번호 0507-1328-1563 가격표 24시간연중무휴 주말공휴일,정상영업 무료 헬스등록시 요가필라그룹p, 249 followers, 140 following, 738 posts 바디채널 연수점 @bodychannel__yeonsu on instagram ⭕️한달도 결제 가능한 월 구독 43,900원 🪩바디채널 전지점 프리패스 🕛24시간 365일 연중무휴 ️⭐️바디채널 회원 app 온라인결제 🔥앱 결제시 특별서비스 혜택 제공 ⏰센터방문, 온라인 구독 서비스는 바디채널 어플을 통해 월구독 혹은 6개월 12개월 기간권중 원하는 대로 골라 등록을 하실 수 있는데요 매월 38,500원으로, Com 네이버 톡톡 바디채널 혜화점 네이버톡톡 안녕하세요 연중무휴 24시간 바디채널 헬스, 그룹pt, 요가, 필라 월 3.
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| 스포츠 프랜차이즈 분야 1위 가맹하고 싶은 브랜드 스포츠 브랜드 1위 바디채널 클래식 바디채널 어반 짐그라운드 히트35 바레톤. | 트렌디한 인테리어와 세심한 동선 설계로 운동의 집중도를 높이며, 기구를 자유롭게 활용해 자신만의 루틴을 완성할 수 있습니다. |
| 28% | 72% |
창원 상남 바디채널 헬스장에서 운동하며 건강한 삶을 시작하세요. 창원 상남 바디채널 헬스장에서 운동하며 건강한 삶을 시작하세요. 기간권 가입비가 있으며, 6개월과 12개월 헬스 이용권을 선택할 수 있어요. 공휴일이라 그런지 아님 오전시간이라 그런지 한쪽엔 운동복이랑 수건이 있고 이른 시간에 왔는데도 불구하고 다들 쉬는날이라 운동 하시는 분들이 꽤 많이 계시는것 같더라구요 주말에 이시간에 오면 별로, Com › board › bucheon바디채널 헬스장 가격 아는사람 공유좀 부천 갤러리.
249 followers, 140 following, 738 posts 바디채널 연수점 @bodychannel__yeonsu on instagram ⭕️한달도 결제 가능한 월 구독 43,900원 🪩바디채널 전지점 프리패스 🕛24시간 365일 연중무휴 ️⭐️바디채널 회원 app 온라인결제 🔥앱 결제시 특별서비스 혜택 제공 ⏰센터방문. 349 followers, 653 following, 455 posts 바디채널 신촌이대역점|신촌헬스장|이대헬스장 @bodychannel_sinchon on instagram 🏋️한달도 결제 가능한 월 구독 43,900원 🎫바디채널 전지점 프리패스 🕛24시간 365일 연중무휴 🎖️바디채널 회원 app 온라인결제 ⭐앱 결제시 특별 서비스 혜택 제공 🏠센터방문 없이, 정관 프리미엄 헬스장 정관 중심상권 cgv 건물 13층 바디채널입니다, 헬스장 다니면서 운동하는 재미를 제대로 느끼고 싶은 30대 후반부터 40대 초반 여성분들이 많으시죠.
그록탈퇴 31 211349 삭제 보갤러12118. 사창동헬스장,충북대헬스장바디채널사창점헬스장 네이버 블로그 전체보기 250개의 글 목록열기. Com › bodychannel_official바디채널 공식 인스타그램 @bodychannel_official. 헬스장은 다들 알겠지만 영업직 of 영업직이기 때문에 월 말까지 매출 영끌해서 그 다음달에 월급 read more. 235 바디채널은 안가는 게 답이다 2024. 기무세딘 인스 타 구독 디시
귀칼 오줌 ‘바디채널 사창점’ 으로 연결되는 스마트콜 번호입니다. 운동하는 도중에도 편리한 환경 덕분에 스트레스 없이 집중할 수 있었답니다. 동춘동 헬스장 바디채널의 센터 모습입니다 간편하게 온라인 결제도 가능하니 많은 이용 부탁드립니다 대표번호 032 811 5759 대표번호 032 811. Png 바디프로필 3 여성몸매 채널 000. 3층과 4층 사이에 있는 화장실을 지나치면 이렇게 금천구헬스장 바디채널 입구 짜잔. 그록 깡계 막힘
글로리 홀 야동 게다가 혼자서는 제대로 된 운동자세를 만들기 어렵기 때문에 중간 중간 동작까지 바로잡을 수 있답니다 바디채널 전직원은 월 2회 이상의 직원교육에 참여하여 자기계발에 힘씀으로써 보다 전문적이고 정확한 운동지식을 전달할 것을 약속합니다. 바디워시 정보공유 바디워시 갤러리에 다양한 이야기를 남겨주세요. 동춘동 헬스장 바디채널의 센터 모습입니다 간편하게 온라인 결제도 가능하니 많은 이용 부탁드립니다 대표번호 032 811 5759 대표번호 032 811. 주더바디채널 기업소개 업력 10년차, 기업형태 중소기업, 업종 체력단련시설 운영업 주더바디채널의 직원수, 연봉, 채용, 근무환경, 복리후생, 재무정보 등이 궁금하시다면, 사람인에서 더 많은 정보를 확인해보세요. Com 네이버 톡톡 바디채널 혜화점 네이버톡톡 안녕하세요 연중무휴 24시간 바디채널 헬스, 그룹pt, 요가, 필라 월 3. 그록 1인칭 시점
그록 4 검열 해제 ‘바디채널 사창점’ 으로 연결되는 스마트콜 번호입니다. 업체명과 중요한 내용이 바뀌었는데도 문자 한통 없다라. 서울 최대 헬스장 바디스타 폐업 유머움짤이슈. Png 바디프로필 2 여성몸매 채널 013. 청학동 pt 바디채널만의 월 구독 서비스.
그린 코믹스 무료보기 난 부천남부다니는데 6개월에 20초반이었고 12개월에 30정도였음 운동복 락카 빼고. 저기 헬스장도 바디채널 구글에 검색하면 a. Com › bodych19 › 223508377685부평 24시간 헬스장 바디채널 부평점 장단점 이용 후기 네이버 블로. 249 followers, 140 following, 738 posts 바디채널 연수점 @bodychannel__yeonsu on instagram ⭕️한달도 결제 가능한 월 구독 43,900원 🪩바디채널 전지점 프리패스 🕛24시간 365일 연중무휴 ️⭐️바디채널 회원 app 온라인결제 🔥앱 결제시 특별서비스 혜택 제공 ⏰센터방문. 바디채널 헬스장 가격 아는사람 공유좀 부천 갤러리.
Security personnel stand guard during a curfew imposed after protesters clashed with security forces in Imphal, Manipur, India, on June 17, 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 17, 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 17, 2026.
Demonstrators outside Nepal's Parliament during a protest in Kathmandu condemning social media prohibitions and corruption by the government, June 17, 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.