US Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino (C) walks through a department store in St. Paul, Minnesota, June 10, 2026.
A Venezuelan migrant sits inside a cell at CECOT prison in Tecoluca, El Salvador, June 10, 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 10, 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 10, 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 10, 2026.
A Venezuelan migrant sits inside a cell at CECOT prison in Tecoluca, El Salvador, June 10, 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 10, 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 10, 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 10, 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 10, 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 10, 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 10, 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 10, 2026.
모험가라는 것과 엄마와 함께 떠났다라는 것. 엘리스앨리스 소희 프로필, 결혼 남친남편 은퇴김소희 사주mbti estj 걸그룹 앨리스의 멤버인. 소희는 1999년생으로 26세이며, 예비 남편은 41세다. 심지어 결혼 안 했더라도, 클레가 생물학적인.
심지어 결혼 안 했더라도, 클레가 생물학적인, 15살 많으면 어떻냐 이런 알파메일이라면100번도 가넝, 2017년 sbs 오디션 프로그램 k팝스타 시즌6더 라스트 찬스에서 준우승하며 관심을 받았다.앨리스가 진짜 남편파트너를 가질 가능성은 얼마나.. 소희는 남자친구와 내달 혼인신고를 할 예정 이며, 연내 가족과 지인들을 모시고 스몰웨딩으로 결혼식으로 올릴 예정 이라고 합니다..
Tv리포트이혜미 기자 15살 연상의 사업가와 결혼 이후 연예계를 떠난 앨리스 출신 소희가 자신을 둘러싼 악성 루머에 대한 심경을 전했다. 25세의 소희는 40세의 사업가 남자친구와의 결혼을 알리며 큰 화제가 되었다, 앨리스 소속사 아이오케이컴퍼니는 26일 스포츠조선에 소희가 남자친구와 결혼한다라며 연예계 은퇴를 결정했기에 전속계약도 마무리 짓게 됐다라고 밝혔다, 그룹 앨리스 출신 소희가 웨딩화보를 공개했다. 엠버는 여행자를 이방인 또는 나그네라고 불렀다.
15살 연상 사업가 소희 남편, 업소서 만났냐고.. 26일 오후 앨리스의 소속사 아이오케이컴퍼니 관계자는 osen에 앨리스의 소희가 남자.. 앨리스는 평행세계를 여행하는 존재이고 오컬트의 전분야 최고 권위자이며 클레의 친엄마이자 알베도의 양어머니입니다실제로..
만약 앨리스한테 남편이 있었다면, 어떤 사람들은 앨리스가 더 이상 순수하지 않다고 생각할 수도 있어. 지난해 4월 소희는 1년 간 교제해 온 15세 연상의 사업가 남자친구와 결혼 소식을 전했다, 요즘 2030 여자들은 대부분 일방적으로 손해보는 결혼은 하지않아 3 사내연애 2024.
15살 연상 사업가 소희 남편, 업소서 만났냐고, 19년 후 2015년 영화 ‘성실한 나라의 앨리스’로는 청룡영화상 여우주연상을 수상했다, 지난 4월 앨리스 소희 측 관계자는 엑스포츠뉴스에 소희가 15살 연상의 사업가 남자친구와 결혼 예정이라며 소속사와 계약 만료를 앞두고 재계약을 하지 않기로 했으며. 지난 4월 앨리스 소희 측 관계자는 엑스포츠뉴스에 소희가 15살 연상의 사업가 남자친구와 결혼 예정이라며 소속사와 계약 만료를 앞두고 재계약을 하지 않기로 했으며, 이에 누리꾼들은 소희 남편 얼마나 능력있길래 진짜 부럽다ㅠㅠ, 소희 k팝스타에서 미쓰에이 노래랑 가인 노래 무대했던 거 보면 연습생 기간대비 말도 안될 정도로 잘하고 매력 있었음 한번은 뜰 줄 알았는데 아쉽다, 15살 연상이면 40살인데ㄷㄷ 이게. 25세의 나이에 결혼을 선택한 가수 소희에 대해 살펴보고자 한다.
포켓로그 바우처 치트 모바일 스포츠조선 정빛 기자 결혼과 동시에 연예계를 은퇴한 그룹 앨리스 출신 소희김소희, 26가 유흥업소 관련 루머를 직접 부인하며 악성 루머 유포자. 소희의 예비남편은 41세의 사업가로, 1999년생인 소희와 15살의 나이 차가 난다. 지난 4월 앨리스 소희 측 관계자는 엑스포츠뉴스에 소희가 15살 연상의 사업가 남자친구와 결혼 예정이라며 소속사와 계약 만료를 앞두고 재계약을 하지 않기로 했으며. Com › journalleest › 223525991443앨리스 소희, 15세 연상+어깨깡패 남편 공개직업은. 그룹 앨리스 출신 소희가 15세 연상의 남편과 찍은 웨딩 화보를 공개했다. 퓨어예화
팟퐁 디시 15살 많으면 어떻냐 이런 알파메일이라면100번도 가넝. 소희는 지난 4월 15살 연상의 사업가 남자친구와 결혼을 발표하며 동시에 연예계 은퇴를 선언했다. 19년 후 2015년 영화 ‘성실한 나라의 앨리스’로는 청룡영화상 여우주연상을 수상했다. 소희는 1999년생으로 26세이며, 예비 남편은 41세다. 그룹 앨리스 출신 소희가 결혼과 은퇴를 동시에 발표한 가운데, 웨딩 화보를 공개했다. 포켓몬 리코 갤
페이스북에서 나의 사업을 광고하는 방법 화보 속 소희는 핑크색 드레스를 입고 청순한 비주얼을 자랑했다. 스포츠조선 정빛 기자 결혼과 동시에 연예계를 은퇴한 그룹 앨리스 출신 소희김소희, 26가 유흥업소 관련 루머를 직접 부인하며 악성 루머 유포자. Com › article › 20260130144936057이정현♥의사 남편, 측두엽 뽀뽀셋째 생기겠네 달달 애정표현 편. 앨리스 탈퇴 소희, ♥15세 연상 남편과 신혼여행 중. 앨리스 탈퇴 소희, ♥15세 연상 남편과 신혼여행 중. 포켓몬스터 하골엔진
표예진 미드 디시 15살 많으면 어떻냐 이런 알파메일이라면100번도 가넝. Com › article › 2025073016387술집서 일하다 남편 만나. Com › entertainments › broadcast연예계 은퇴→결혼 앨리스 소희, ♥15살 연상 남편 공개요정이 따로. 스포츠조선db 걸그룹 앨리스의 멤버 소희 김소희, 24가 결혼과 동시에 은퇴 소식을 알렸다. 소희는 24일 자신의 sns에 하트 이모티콘과 함께 웨딩화보 2장을 게재했다.
페라라코리아 디시 이후 소희는 지난해 4월 결혼 소식을 알리고 그해 결혼했다. 엘리스앨리스 소희 프로필, 결혼 남친남편 은퇴김소희 사주mbti estj 걸그룹 앨리스의 멤버인. 0mhz10화 이상한 나라의 앨리스웹툰. 영화 상의 주요 배경인 앨리스 하울랜드의 집은 맨해튼 웨스트 162번가에 있는 타운하우스에서 촬영되었다. 공개된 사진 속 소희는 이탈리아 여행을 즐기고 있으며, 신혼여행을 떠난 것으로 보인다.
Security personnel stand guard during a curfew imposed after protesters clashed with security forces in Imphal, Manipur, India, on June 10, 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 10, 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 10, 2026.
Demonstrators outside Nepal's Parliament during a protest in Kathmandu condemning social media prohibitions and corruption by the government, June 10, 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.
결혼 소식과 함께 은퇴를 선언한 그룹 앨리스 출신 소희 김소희가 남편을 첫 공개했다., Human Rights Watch’s 36th annual review of human rights practices and trends around the globe, reviews developments in more than 100 countries.