US Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino (C) walks through a department store in St. Paul, Minnesota, July 30, 2026.
A Venezuelan migrant sits inside a cell at CECOT prison in Tecoluca, El Salvador, July 30, 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, July 30, 2026. © 2025 Marton Monus/Reuters; SECOND: University students confront riot police in Istanbul’s Beşiktaş district following the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, July 30, 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, July 30, 2026.
A Venezuelan migrant sits inside a cell at CECOT prison in Tecoluca, El Salvador, July 30, 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, July 30, 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, July 30, 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, July 30, 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, July 30, 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, July 30, 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, July 30, 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, July 30, 2026.
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앞으로도 키타노 미나는 더 나은 작품을 선보이며 성장할 것으로 기대됩니다.. 키타노 유나 kitano yuna, 北乃ゆな.. ’싫어 보이냐, 여자야 메조한테 말야 국물냄새가.. Jul487 온라인 시청, kitano yuna, 황금빛 미각의 여자..
다른이름 니시우미 시온西海しおん키타노 마호北乃真帆 생년월일 19940821 31세 신장 168 cm 신체사이즈 b90, 2021년 3월 7일에 마돈나 madonna에서 작품을 발매하며 데뷔한 신인배우 키타노 유나 입니다. 자고 있는 시어머니의 엉덩이를 며느리의 엉덩이로 잘못 알고, 시어머니인 줄 모르고 즉시 키타노 유나. Jul487 황금의 미각을 가지는 온나 키타노 유나 26세 av.
Com › postcats › 19유모토렌트 miab608 키타노 미나fanza限定感覚がつながる. Jul487 온라인 시청 및 다운로드 jul487 무료. Com › fc2new › 223245964084키타노 유나 네이버 블로그.
北乃ゆな, きたのゆな kitano yuna birth_1994. 16, 장르, 상표prestige×hmjm. 기죽지 않아, 흔들리지 않아, 포기하지 않아. Com › missav › program_viewjul487키타노 유나 missav.
| 키타노 유나 av 여배우 1994년 출생 2021년 데뷔 미사와시 출신 인물. | 개개인의 취향과 스타일에 따라서 호불호는 있을테구요 개인적으로, 처음엔 별 감흥이 없었던 신인이었는데 작품을 관람 후 괜찮게 느껴진 신인배우 입니다. | Siro4615 키타노 유나 첫 찍기구성되는 골짜기구조리 시오후키품의 장점과 에로스를 갖추는 마루노우치 ol이 등장. | Mfyd086 키타노 미나市民プールで息子が友達と遊んでいる8時間、私は息子が通う水泳教室のコーチと不倫sexに溺れて. |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kitano yuna 키타노 유나 네이버 블로그 naver. | 인물 예전에는 레이스퀸 으로 활동해 인기 버라이. | 16, 장르, 상표prestige×hmjm. | 일본 av kitano yuna 컬렉션 보기. |
| Com › fc2new › 223245964084키타노 유나 네이버 블로그. | Kitano yuna 키타노 유나 네이버 블로그 naver. | Com › postcats › 19유모토렌트 miab608 키타노 미나fanza限定感覚がつながる. | 다른이름 니시우미 시온西海しおん키타노 마호北乃真帆 생년월일 19940821 31세 신장 168 cm 신체사이즈 b90. |
| 최근 작품 pbd492, umd959. | 청초ol이 비추한 소리를 울리면서 육봉을 정성스럽게 핥아 올려 질중에 삽입되면 카메라 앞에서 치태를 드러내. | 인물 예전에는 레이스퀸 으로 활동해 인기 버라이. | Com › postcats › 52mfyd086 키타노 미나市民プールで息子が友達と遊んでいる8時間. |
| 키타노 유나 av 여배우 1994년 출생 2021년 데뷔 미사와시 출신 인물. | Com › av100 › 444키타노 유나 av100 avloom av배우 품번, 검색, 최신 출연작 보. | 이 외에도 다양한 무료 스트리밍 콘텐츠를 missav에서 즐겨보세요. | 시리즈에 결혼 1년차 시온상 28세 미시 주부로 출연한 도호쿠 아오모리현 출신, 레이싱모델 이력의 키 165cm 장신 슬렌더 av 여배우 니시우미 시온 西海しおん, nishiumi shion 구 예명은 키타노 유나 北乃ゆな 일본어 시온 しおん 의미는. |
키타노 유나 北乃ゆな|yuna kitano, 기죽지 않아, 흔들리지 않아, 포기하지 않아. 키타노 유나 北乃ゆな|yuna kitano.
여캠 보지털 16, 장르, 상표prestige×hmjm. 키타노 유나 北乃ゆな, きたのゆな kitano yuna birth_1994. Com › postcats › 19유모토렌트 miab608 키타노 미나fanza限定感覚がつながる. 키타노 유나 키타노 유나 → 니시우미 시온. 다른이름 니시우미 시온西海しおん키타노 마호北乃真帆 생년월일 19940821 31세 신장 168 cm 신체사이즈 b90. 연동오나홀챈
연우 신작 시리즈에 결혼 1년차 시온상 28세 미시 주부로 출연한 도호쿠 아오모리현 출신, 레이싱모델 이력의 키 165cm 장신 슬렌더 av 여배우 니시우미 시온 西海しおん, nishiumi shion 구 예명은 키타노 유나 北乃ゆな 일본어 시온 しおん 의미는. 인물 예전에는 레이스퀸 으로 활동해 인기 버라이. ดู av ออนไลน์ของ 기타노 유나 missav. 90 fcup bt_x debut_2021. 프로필 이름 키타노 미나 kitano mina, 北野未奈 생년월일 2000년 12월 30일 키 162cm 가슴사이. 오구리미사오
영서 박준일 키타노 유나 yuna kitano 1994년 08월 21일생 키는 168cm이고 신체사이즈는 b90w59h90이다 컵사이즈는 f컵이다 2021년 03월에 데뷔했다. 키타노 유나의 프로필 출연작 순위 필모그래피 하이라이트. 자고 있는 시어머니의 엉덩이를 며느리의 엉덩이로 잘못 알고, 시어머니인 줄 모르고 즉시 키타노 유나. 친구의 소개로 시작한 레이스 퀸의 일이. Com › postcats › 52mfyd086 키타노 미나市民プールで息子が友達と遊んでいる8時間. 여우가면 히루
여공남수 웹툰 2025 일본 av kitano yuna 컬렉션 보기. 키타노 유나 av 여배우 1994년 출생 2021년 데뷔 미사와시 출신 인물. 인물 예전에는 레이스퀸 으로 활동해 인기 버라이. ’싫어 보이냐, 여자야 메조한테 말야 국물냄새가. 北乃ゆな, きたのゆな kitano yuna birth_1994.
영듀 디시 키타노 유나의 상세 프로필과 출연작 정보. 키타노 유나北乃ゆな31세은는 2021년 첫 작품을 발표한 일본 av 배우입니다. Net › actress › 1067711키타노 유나키타노 유나 프로필 출연작 kitano yuna, 北乃ゆな. 2021년 3월 7일에 마돈나 madonna에서. Kitano yuna 키타노 유나 네이버 블로그 naver.
Security personnel stand guard during a curfew imposed after protesters clashed with security forces in Imphal, Manipur, India, on July 30, 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, July 30, 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, July 30, 2026.
Demonstrators outside Nepal's Parliament during a protest in Kathmandu condemning social media prohibitions and corruption by the government, July 30, 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.
작품을 발매하며 데뷔한 신인배우 키타노 유나 입니다., Human Rights Watch’s 36th annual review of human rights practices and trends around the globe, reviews developments in more than 100 countries.