US Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino (C) walks through a department store in St. Paul, Minnesota, August 6, 2026.
A Venezuelan migrant sits inside a cell at CECOT prison in Tecoluca, El Salvador, August 6, 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 6, 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 6, 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 6, 2026.
A Venezuelan migrant sits inside a cell at CECOT prison in Tecoluca, El Salvador, August 6, 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 6, 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 6, 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 6, 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 6, 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 6, 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 6, 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 6, 2026.
누리마루에서 웹툰과정 들어본사람 있나 만화가지망생. 근데 그걸 악용해서 정부로 부터 수업료만 받을려고 만든게 국비 학원이야. 이건 모든 학원 포함임 자비든 국비든영업사원이 와서 상담해주는 곳 모조리 거르면 됨. 이렇게 간단하게 누리마루 웹툰반 수업에 대해서 설명해보았는데요.
| 이건 모든 학원 포함임 자비든 국비든영업사원이 와서 상담해주는 곳 모조리 거르면 됨. | 오늘은 지난 6개월간 국비로 다닌 3d게임그래픽, 누리마루 학원에 대해 소개하려고 합니다. | 찍먹의 기준을 잘몰라서 고민이 되는데. | 필자는 여느때처럼 취업에 대한 고민을 하던 중이였다. |
|---|---|---|---|
| Com › jp___guno › 224077968730누리마루학원 2d 그래픽 국비지원수업받은 후기 네이버 블로그. | 15 1603 c갤러는 갤러리에서 권장하는 비회원 전용. | 누리마루 국비학원 후기 cg, 3d 갤러리. | 학원 선택의 기준과 누리마루를 알게 되기까지 관련 전공자가 아니었고 입시 미술 경험도 없었기에, 그림을 업으로 삼으려는 첫걸음이 막막하게 느껴졌습니다. |
| 누리마루스쿨,국비지원, 그래픽, 학원, 마루, 스쿨. | 마루게임스쿨 3d2d웹툰게임그래픽 전문 교육. | Ui도 어떤 식으로 진행해야 잘 보이는지, 어떻게 해야 더 모바일 가독성이 좋은지 이런 조언을 많이 받아서 좋은 결과물이 나오고 있어요. | 알아보기 귀찮으면 이곳도 안 왔죠 cg, 3d 갤러리. |
| Com › postview누리마루 학원 후기 국가전략산업직종훈련 국비지원 게임그래픽 배. | 누리마루스쿨,국비지원, 그래픽, 학원, 마루, 스쿨. | 게임 3d 분야로 취업하고자 하는 학생. | 그 중 가장 믿을만한 곳이 누리마루학원이었습니다. |
누리마루학원에서 수강을 들으면서 몹시 만족스러웠던 부분입니다.. 매주 오전 9시부터 오후 1시반까지 5시간 정도를 학원에서 내내 그림만 그려요.. 국비학원인데 돈 내라고 함 달에 20만원.. 이번 포스트에서는 최근 다니기 시작한 게임 그래픽학원 누리마루스쿨에 대해서 이야기해볼까한다..
누리마루학원 6개월 동안의 가장 큰 변화는 취업을 목표로 하는 그림을 체계적으로 그리기 시작했다는 것입니다. Com › jp___guno › 224077968730누리마루학원 2d 그래픽 국비지원수업받은 후기 네이버 블로그, 원래는 국가돈으로 취업률을 올릴만큼 좋은 강사들도 함께 있어야 하는데. 기존에 다녔던 곳에서도 수업을 잘 봐주셨지만, 이와 같은 유연함과 꼼꼼함은 본 적이 없습니다.
최근엔 과제에 치여 사느라 포스트를 못 올렸는데ㅠㅜ 복습이라고 생각하며 더 자주오도록 노력해봐야겠다 여하튼 그래서 후기겸 수업노트. Max의 기초 수업이 끝나면 이렇게 zbrush라는 프로그램으로 좀 더 생각했던 캐릭터 모델링을 하실 수가 있는데요 처음에는 선생님과 같이 간단한 작업을 시작합니다. 학원에 등록한지 벌써 2주일이 지났다니 시간이 너무 빠르다, 교대에 있는 누리마루 학원이라는 곳입니다. Com › mgallery › board국비 누리마루 다녀본사람 있음, 그림 마이너 갤러리 국비 누리마루 다녀본사람 있음.
저는 해당 학원의 2d 그래픽 디자이너 양성과정을 수강하고 있습니다.. 그림 마이너 갤러리 국비 누리마루 다녀본사람 있음..
하나은행 에서 골목으로 쭉 들어오면 누리마루학원 건물이 보입니다. 누리마루에서 웹툰과정 들어본사람 있나 만화가지망생. 찍먹의 기준을 잘몰라서 고민이 되는데. 서울에 있는 ㅇㅋㄷㅁ다니고있는데 스브스아님강사 하는짓거리보니 화가난다강의하다가 툴기능이 제대로 안먹음20분 끄적거리다가 잘되지도않고 지체되니까이런건 수동으로 할수밖에없다면서 툴기능버리고버텍트 1개 하나씩 움직이고있, 일단 지금까지의 수업내용을 순서대로 정리해보자면, 처음엔 우선 본인의 그림을 올린다.
선생님에게 실시간으로 매일매일 피드백을 받을 수 있다, 짜잔 누리마루 학원 후기가 다시 돌아왔다. 강사님 누리마루학원 강사님들에게 정말 좋았던 점은 학생 하나하나 체크를 정말 잘해주신다는 점인데요. 누리마루에서 웹툰과정 들어본사람 있나 만화가지망생. 학원에 등록한지 벌써 2주일이 지났다니 시간이 너무 빠르다, 학생들의 성장시키며 얻은 통찰과 작업꿀팁, 그리고 그들이 걸어온 여정의 이야기가 담겨 있습니다.
게임, 웹툰학과 면접전형 준비해볼 사람. 2022년 9월부터 2023년 5월까지 약 8개월간 수강했던 3d 캐릭터 모델링 후기를 남기려고 블로, 우선 학원이 쾌적하고 관리가 잘 되어있습니다.
국비로 3d 과정 들으려하는데 모델링 이런거 한번도 안해본 초보라서 실력 조금 키우고 나중에 사설 가려구요. 판타블렛 pth660인가 이거 중고로 사면 됨, 이렇게 간단하게 누리마루 웹툰반 수업에 대해서 설명해보았는데요, 다들 안녕하신가 누리마루학원 3번째 후기가 돌아왔다.
Com마루게임스쿨 3d2d웹툰게임그래픽 전문 교육, 이렇게 간단하게 누리마루 웹툰반 수업에 대해서 설명해보았는데요. 누리마루학원은 2d3d 캐릭터 디자인, 배경 디자인, 웹툰, 등 다양한 분야의 전문 교육을 통해 산업 현장에서 선호. 국비로 3d 과정 들으려하는데 모델링 이런거 한번도 안해본 초보라서 실력 조금 키우고 나중에 사설 가려구요. 수강 끝나고 바로 취업해야 한다고 함.
ジグザグカンパニー hitomi 하나은행 에서 골목으로 쭉 들어오면 누리마루학원 건물이 보입니다. 원래는 국가돈으로 취업률을 올릴만큼 좋은 강사들도 함께 있어야 하는데. 일단 지금까지의 수업내용을 순서대로 정리해보자면, 처음엔 우선 본인의 그림을 올린다. 최근엔 과제에 치여 사느라 포스트를 못 올렸는데ㅠㅜ 복습이라고 생각하며 더 자주오도록 노력해봐야겠다 여하튼 그래서 후기겸 수업노트. 23년도 슬슬 취업이 필요한 시기가 되기도 하고 포트폴리오를 어떻게 해야할지 갈팡질팡 하다가 저희 어머니 공방에 수업을 다니시는 분이 누리마루학원 국비 수업을 받으신분이셨는데 소개받고 웹툰 수업도 한다해서 솔깃 했습니다. ㅅㅌㅎㅂ
あんこまん hitomila 누리마루학원 강남점 서울특별시 서초구 서초중앙로22길 62 유성빌딩 3층 예약 누리마루학원 국비지원 국비학원추천 그림학원 일러스트학원 캐릭터 일러스트 캐릭터원화 내일배움카드, 내일배움카드학원, 국민내일배움카드, 국민내일배움카드훈련. 44 교대 국비 한곳밖에 없음 누리마루 2018. 어떤 질문이던지 심지어 사소한 것이든, 그림 그리다가 잘 안되거나 막히는 부분 등. 그 중 가장 믿을만한 곳이 누리마루학원이었습니다. 학원으로 연락주시면 친절히 안내해 드리겠습니다. 제갈윤교
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Security personnel stand guard during a curfew imposed after protesters clashed with security forces in Imphal, Manipur, India, on August 6, 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 6, 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 6, 2026.
Demonstrators outside Nepal's Parliament during a protest in Kathmandu condemning social media prohibitions and corruption by the government, August 6, 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.