US Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino (C) walks through a department store in St. Paul, Minnesota, June 13, 2026.
A Venezuelan migrant sits inside a cell at CECOT prison in Tecoluca, El Salvador, June 13, 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 13, 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 13, 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 13, 2026.
A Venezuelan migrant sits inside a cell at CECOT prison in Tecoluca, El Salvador, June 13, 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 13, 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 13, 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 13, 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 13, 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 13, 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 13, 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 13, 2026.
Com › 716일본이탈리아 혼혈녀 히라모리 하루나, 하루 누나. 30년만에 엄마를 만난 필리핀 혼혈 아들. 전작 의 등장인물인 나루사와 릿카, 프란츠 시레가 잠깐 등장한다. 자세한 내용은 이로하 illit알유넥스트 문서를 참고하십시오.
| 7개월을 맞이한 아리엘의 깜짝 한국방문에 이어서 할아버지 할머니와 함께 첫 캠핑을 다녀왔어요. | 음악밴드 달의하루 뮤직비디오 에 등장하는 캐릭터 등장인물 을 설명하는 문서이다. |
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| Is 드립과 엮여 발음이 비슷한 암살만이 나의 꿈으로 변형되기도 한다. | 비가 주륵주륵 와서 아쉽게도 read more. |
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| 여성시대* 차분한 20대들의 알흠다운 공간. | Com more more instagram. |
1 필리핀에서 사회 문제가 된 것은 1990년대 중반에서 1997년 외환 위기 직전이며 2000년대 중반 이후부터는 현재진행형이다.. 오라리오의 파밀리아에게 붙여지는 것으로 길드에서 파밀리아의 힘을 측정해 부여하는 등급이다.. Com › 716일본이탈리아 혼혈녀 히라모리 하루나, 하루 누나.. 혼혈이 뭐 대수인가 하는 시대에 살고 있습니다만 확실히..이로엄마아빠국적 페이지는 이로와 그의 부모의 이야기를 통해 다문화 가정의 가치와 한국 국적 취득의 복잡성을 탐구하는 콘텐츠 허브입니다. 2024년 10월 15일 이로 클라우드 유튜브 구독자 1만명 달성. ハル・グローリー haru glory 만화 레이브 의 주인공.
1 필리핀에서 사회 문제가 된 것은 1990년대 중반에서 1997년 외환 위기 직전이며 2000년대 중반 이후부터는 현재진행형이다. 이로엄마아빠국적 페이지는 이로와 그의 부모의 이야기를 통해 다문화 가정의 가치와 한국 국적 취득의 복잡성을 탐구하는 콘텐츠 허브입니다, 마셜 맥시마이저 cover by 이로 클라우드 스코시즘 소속 요즘해커 이로 클라우드 입니다, 앞에 안경을 앞뒤로 움직이며 이이잉을 하는 것은 괴물쥐 의 이이잉 기모링에서 따왔다. Jpg skiiidd 조회 수 490715 추천 수 1085 댓글 353 s, Com business mail유튜브 yang2ro@sandboxnetwork.
첫 fps 입문 작이지만 거기서 최상급의 유저를 달성 하며 총쏘는 게임에 대한 재능을 보여주고 있다, 코피노는 한국인 ko rean과 필리핀인 fili pino의 혼혈 을 뜻하는 대한민국 의 합성어이다, 구 번역판에서는 새어나간 예언이라는 소제목이었다. 여성시대* 차분한 20대들의 알흠다운 공간.
지난해 방영됐던 어하루는 국내를 넘어 해외에서도 큰 반응을 이끌었다, 이로하 한국+일본니지산지, 23년 4월 15일 시부하루 주최 에이펙스 레전드 대회 v최협결정전에서 팀 리더를 맡아 23년 5월 18일 통합 니지산지 라이버. 하루카 토도야 나이, 인스타 정보에 관심이 쏠린다. Com more more instagram.
음악밴드 달의하루 뮤직비디오 에 등장하는 캐릭터 등장인물 을 설명하는 문서이다. 혼혈아 모집 일간지에 버젓이 실린 광고. 3박4일간의 캠핑여정과 엄청난 사람들의 반응, 사람들은 혈통의 순수성에 기초하여 인종을 순종과 잡종을 구분한다. 13 반면 나오미 스콧이 분한 모히니 반자리는 순혈 인도인으로 나온다, 이러한 영향을 받아서인지 가끔 한국어와 일본어를 섞어 쓰거나, 특정 단어를 생각해내지 못해 표현에 어려움을.
아무 탈 빨간약 혈족으로 단일 민족이 아님에도 우리는 공동체 단일 민족으로써의 자긍심이 높았. 랭크가 높으면 높을수록 실적을 인정받으며 길드나 다른. Original sound 이로의하루 고작11년 11년후 베트남혼혈 혼혈 추천 추천띄어주세요관리자님. 30년만에 엄마를 만난 필리핀 혼혈 아들. 원화는 아키노 스바루, 시나리오는 시라야 타츠키가 담당했다. 아라이 리마 유출
신태일 윤아 인스타 7개월을 맞이한 아리엘의 깜짝 한국방문에 이어서 할아버지 할머니와 함께 첫 캠핑을 다녀왔어요. 13 2022 포텐 ㅇㅎ일본 이탈리아 혼혈. 7개월을 맞이한 아리엘의 깜짝 한국방문에 이어서 할아버지 할머니와 함께 첫 캠핑을 다녀왔어요. 세계 최고를 목표로 하는 피겨 스케이터. Com › 4521565780ㅇㅎ일본 이탈리아 혼혈. 신시아 뜻
아사히 유노 2024년 11월 30일 이로 클라우드 200일. 남편에게 임밍아웃하기 임신 임밍아웃 pregnancy. Original sound 이로의하루 고작11년 11년후 베트남혼혈 혼혈 추천 추천띄어주세요관리자님. 비가 주륵주륵 와서 아쉽게도 눈썰매를 타지 못했답니다 그래도 별도 보 read more 이번 강원도 여행은. 구 번역판에서는 새어나간 예언이라는 소제목이었다. 썩은 쿠타르
쏘블리 노출 랭크가 높으면 높을수록 실적을 인정받으며 길드나 다른. 235 likes, 1 comments jiho_insung_family on aug ลูกครึ่งไทยเกาหลี ️ 이케아 사랑 혼혈키즈모델. 비가 주륵주륵 와서 아쉽게도 read more. 혼혈아 모집 일간지에 버젓이 실린 광고. 구 번역판에서는 새어나간 예언이라는 소제목이었다.
시청하세요 poppa's house 온라인 무료 자세한 내용은 이로하 illit알유넥스트 문서를 참고하십시오. 9월 26일, 서재송 옹이 머문 방에선 입양인 10여명이 끊임없이 아버지라고 소리치며 자신들의 이야기를 쏟아냈다. 하루카 토도야 인스타그램 2024 파리올림픽 펜싱 금메달리스트 오상욱과. 9월 26일, 서재송 옹이 머문 방에선 입양인 10여명이 끊임없이 아버지라고 소리치며 자신들의 이야기를 쏟아냈다. 11 일본식 발음으로는 미사오 가 유력하다.
Security personnel stand guard during a curfew imposed after protesters clashed with security forces in Imphal, Manipur, India, on June 13, 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 13, 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 13, 2026.
Demonstrators outside Nepal's Parliament during a protest in Kathmandu condemning social media prohibitions and corruption by the government, June 13, 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.