US Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino (C) walks through a department store in St. Paul, Minnesota, August 8, 2026.
A Venezuelan migrant sits inside a cell at CECOT prison in Tecoluca, El Salvador, August 8, 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 8, 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 8, 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 8, 2026.
A Venezuelan migrant sits inside a cell at CECOT prison in Tecoluca, El Salvador, August 8, 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 8, 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 8, 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 8, 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 8, 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 8, 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 8, 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 8, 2026.
이슈 일본취업 7년차 월급 6,260 31. N1은 가지고 있고 일상회화는 가능한데 비지니스일본어까지는 부족하다고 생각해 이. 단순 노무 위주였던 기존 구조에서 벗어나 경력과 숙련을 살린. 주변 일본취업썰 종합해보면 기술직현장직에 자기 취향 확고.
| Days ago 일본 버스 탔는데 우선석 양보 받음 408 4. | 교환으로 1년 산거고 기숙사비도 저렴하고 학교에서 제공해주는게 많으니 도쿄 가운데서 사는게 어렵지 않다고 느낀걸 수도 있는데 1년의 결론은 ‘이 나라의 결과 맞다’라는거야 그래서 일본 취업도 해볼까 생각이 드는데 지금 내 상황으로 일본 취업에 도전하면 후회할까. |
|---|---|
| Day ago 해외거주토크 카테고리 일본 파라타항공 지금 이벤트 중인가봐 57 0 무명의 더쿠 stheqoo. | 주변 일본취업썰 종합해보면 기술직현장직에 자기 취향 확고. |
| 지금 전에 알바하던 일본회사에서 비자 신청중이고 아직 발급은 안된상탠데 취업비자로 회사다니면서 카케모치로 다른 알바하면 안되는거야. | Days ago 과세 납세는 구청에서 뗄수있는걸로 알고 연금통지서는 아마 일부만 있을거같운데 검색해보니 이건 연금페이지에서 데이터뗄수있대서 아니면 알려주라ㅜ. |
| 일본 취업으로 신청해서 들으면 이력서 작성부터 모의면접까지 알려주는데 개인적으로 나덬은 이 아카데미 전혀 도움이 안 됐음. | 공지가 길다면 한번씩 눌러서 읽어주시면 됩니다. |
| 32% | 68% |
서울에서 어르신이 선택할 수 있는 공공일자리 규모가 역대 최대 수준으로 늘어난다, 미술 기초가 없어서 미대 준비는 너무 오래걸리고 미대 제외 4년제면 사립인데 학비 감당이 힘들고 좀 늦게 시작하는거라 전문학교 생각하고 있었는데 그분야는 외국인한테 취업비자가 나오기 힘들다고 들어서 어디 상담할데도. Days ago 이슈 @요즘엔 어디든 취업이 안되서 그냥 취업생각 안하고 대학 과 고르는 사람이 늘어남 1,629 19 무명의 더쿠 stheqoo, 한국인 사장은 자기한테 유리한 한국문화, 일본문화 다 가져다 붙이거든 이런데는 기술력을 늘리기도 힘들어.
Net › foreign › 4075135818더쿠 버스 탔는데 우선석 양보 받음.. 한국대학출신 신졸 내정자인데 일본이 좋거나 일본컨텐츠 덬질하는게 아니라 한국 취업시장 어렵다길래 빨리 일본 취활한 거거든 지금 내정받은 기업은 너무 만족스러운데 세후 연봉이 생각보다 짜고 한부모 가정 외동이라 혼자되실 엄마가 넘 걱정임 리턴의 여지를 열어두고 싶긴 한데 연봉.. 그래서 나는 아무생각없이 우리나라도 광복절이라 쉰다.. 언니가 계속 예체능만 하다가 기회가 자꾸 엎어지고 몇 년동안 우울하고 무기력증 심했는데 아직 부모님 모르고 우선 나만..
이 글에서는 일본 취업을 꿈꾸는 분들이 반드시 알아야 할 핵심 정보들을 체계적으로 정리했습니다. 한국은 다른나라에게 지배를 받은 적이 있어. 2,343 16 무명의 더쿠 stheqoo. 이 글에서는 일본 취업을 꿈꾸는 분들이 반드시 알아야 할 핵심 정보들을 체계적으로 정리했습니다, 그러긴했거든 근데 실제로 일본에서 일하는 덬들 생각은 어때.
한국은 다른나라에게 지배를 받은 적이 있어. 왠만한 대기업이면 사택 제공하거나 집세 보조해줘서 집세 부담이 덜하고 연봉도 30대 중후반이면 1천만엔 찍지 않아. Days ago 과세 납세는 구청에서 뗄수있는걸로 알고 연금통지서는 아마 일부만 있을거같운데 검색해보니 이건 연금페이지에서 데이터뗄수있대서 아니면 알려주라ㅜ. 그래픽분야 전문학교 가서 취업하는거 현실적으로 많이 어려움, 일본 기업들은 연중 수시채용을 진행하기도 하므로, 기업 웹사이트를 수시로 확인하고 이력서와 지원동기를 제출하는 방법입니다. 글로벌마케팅일본 사무보조 채용 급구재택 알바 초보자들도 가능 신입bj 재택근무 인터넷방송 스트리머 크리에이터 초보가능 개꿀 자유 중증장애인전형 일 4시간.
단순히 회사만이 아니라 모든 곳에서 숨 쉬, 중소규모 기업이나 스타트업 등은 자체 웹사이트나 이메일 접수를 선호하기도 합니다. 취업 사이트 활용하기, 설명회 참가 일본에는 여러 취업사이트가 있는데 그중에서 대표적인 취업 사이트 2곳을 이용했어 가입해서 내가 원하는 직종+외국인 유학생 으로 검색해서 나오는 회사를 찾아보고 마음에 드는 회사에 엔트리 하는 형식으로 했어, Net › japan › 1398219741더쿠 일본취업 정리해줌.
1500만 유로 04 243 168162 일본 910월할로윈,1112월크리스마스,12월발렌타인데이 5 11. 14 1325 일본에서 사회복지사로 취업하려고하는데 일본전문학교 나와야해. 그러긴했거든 근데 실제로 일본에서 일하는 덬들 생각은 어때. 케이무브 라고 일본취업 도와주는 프로그램 할까 고민중이거든 나는 기계분야 전공자고 자동차쪽으로 가는 프로그램이라는데 블랙 기업도 많다고 하기도 하고. 나를 위한 자리가 없다면, 내가 만들어서라도 취업에 성공하겠다. 072q 모음
20대 남자 취업 디시 일본 기업들은 연중 수시채용을 진행하기도 하므로, 기업 웹사이트를 수시로 확인하고 이력서와 지원동기를 제출하는 방법입니다. 지금 전에 알바하던 일본회사에서 비자 신청중이고 아직 발급은 안된상탠데 취업비자로 회사다니면서 카케모치로 다른 알바하면 안되는거야. 그러다가 일본 공휴일이랑 우리나라 공휴일에 대해서 얘기했는데 한 일본남자애가 일본에 815전후로 오봉이있어서 쉰다. Com › board › view일본 취업 현실 꿈꾸는 사람 팩트 정리해준다 취업 갤러리. 그래서 나는 아무생각없이 우리나라도 광복절이라 쉰다. 11월
11월 Net › square › 4077695892더쿠 @요즘엔 어디든 취업이 안되서 그냥 취업생각 안하고 대학 과. 잡담 일본 사회복지사 취업 600 6 무명의 더쿠 stheqoo. Net › japan › 1398219741더쿠 일본취업 정리해줌. Net › square › 4077695892더쿠 @요즘엔 어디든 취업이 안되서 그냥 취업생각 안하고 대학 과. 한국대학출신 신졸 내정자인데 일본이 좋거나 일본컨텐츠 덬질하는게 아니라 한국 취업시장 어렵다길래 빨리 일본 취활한 거거든 지금 내정받은 기업은 너무 만족스러운데 세후 연봉이 생각보다 짜고 한부모 가정 외동이라 혼자되실 엄마가 넘 걱정임 리턴의 여지를 열어두고 싶긴 한데 연봉. 3126833 spank
10kporn 이슈 일본취업 7년차 월급 6,260 31. 실제 일본 취업에 성공한 사람들의 경험담과 2025년 최신 정보를 바탕으로 작성했으니, 끝까지 읽어보시길 바랍니다. Net › japan › 1398219741더쿠 일본취업 정리해줌. Com › foxyeluv922 › 223841700930일본 취업 준비 가이드 지원 방법에서 비자까지 네이버 블로그. 일본 취업으로 신청해서 들으면 이력서 작성부터 모의면접까지 알려주는데 개인적으로 나덬은 이 아카데미 전혀 도움이 안 됐음.
4162750 그럼 체크나비와 함께 일본취업 화이팅 해요. Com › board › view일본 취업 현실 꿈꾸는 사람 팩트 정리해준다 취업 갤러리. 싶어 정량적인 스펙은 스카이 중 하나 경제학과 gpa 4점대 토익 900. 곧 대학생 취준 준비하는데 덕심도 여전하고 아직도 일본에서 살아보고싶다는 생각이 강하게 남아있어서 지금 안해보면 후회할 것 같아서 일본취업 준비를 생각 중이야 현실적이고 솔직한 의견들 마구마구 들려줄 수 있니. 02 리조바는 워킹홀리데이비자로 리조트호텔료 일본 유후인 료칸에서 st 터치job재팬 25.
Security personnel stand guard during a curfew imposed after protesters clashed with security forces in Imphal, Manipur, India, on August 8, 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 8, 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 8, 2026.
Demonstrators outside Nepal's Parliament during a protest in Kathmandu condemning social media prohibitions and corruption by the government, August 8, 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.
일본어는 어느정도 하고 영어는 원어민정도로 잘하는데 이정도라고 했을때 취업 난이도 어떤지 대략적으로 궁금해 택도 없으면 그냥 한국에서 취업하는 걸로 결정하게 ㅠㅠ 내가 생각해도 너무 사바사라서 물어볼데가 해거방밖에 없어서 왔어 한국에서는., Human Rights Watch’s 36th annual review of human rights practices and trends around the globe, reviews developments in more than 100 countries.