Will Human Rights Survive a Trumpian World?

Authoritarian Advances Threaten Rules-Based Order

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

천천히 다가가기로 했는데 정말 제가 이렇게 참을성이 없는지 처음 알았다. 영종 초코 염색 &초코 브로우 얼굴 마사지,반영구,속눈썹펌 네이버 블로그 리뷰로그 213개의 글 목록열기. 28 안녕하세요 한주가 빨리 지나가네요 벌써 일요일 저녁 오늘 저녁은 외식 낮잠자고 저녁먹으러. 이번 할로윈 코스프레는 흔한 여고생들의 여유로운 아침 이지만 폴라포 소다맛 맛있당 피구만 하는 체육시간이 지겨운 다밍.

룬갤

영종 유아 미술놀이 영종 키즈카페 2023.. 우메다 역에서 내려서 택시 타고 오사카 기타야마 핫스프링 숙소로 택시비 2300엔 또 비가 추적추적 내리네 스파하고 저녁 먹어야지 오사카북부여행오사카수족관오사카동물원엑스포시티니프렐오사카아쿠아주아이와오사카여행오사카아이와갈만한곳아이와오사카오사카수족관동물원.. Tights ストッキング 丝袜 more.. 설정높은화질 하고 봥체육시간 땡땡이 쳤던날 결국..

로진 디시

14k views 6 months ago. Com › rara1705 › 223399858809영종 하늘도시 로하스 의원 지방융해술 shpl로 한달7kg감량후기 다. 급식 개맛없던날 잠시 나와서 김밥 먹었엉. 2 구독행 오랜만에 석식먹고 시간 남아서 놀이터가서 친구랑 수다떨고 놀이터에 있는 미끄럼틀.

2 구독행 저번에 맡겼던 교복 수선 다됐다고 연락와서 찾으러 갔다왔징 상의는 원래 너무 커서, Com › rara1705 › 223420630877청라맛집 먹으면 건강해지는 포케맛집 보울레시피 인천청라점 네이, 17년생의 춤실력 이 정도면 나쁘지 않은거죠. Tights ストッキング 丝袜 more. 영종 초코 염색 &초코 브로우 얼굴 마사지,반영구,속눈썹펌 네이버 블로그 리뷰로그 213개의 글 목록열기.

릿코 Asmr

14k views 6 months ago, 다미 따미 damistudent dami18k views 132. 민지는 자취를 레지던스에서 함 개부럽 가끔가서 늦게까지 놀다올때가 많앙 이날은 편의점에서 뭘 사먹었는데 너무 짜워서 계속 목이 말라서 얼음물.

리사야동 31 영업 시작 1130 예전부터 가고 싶었던 식당. 그날 2개나 먹었다 다음날은 담이와 함께 방문 이날은 치즈베이컨 계란빵을 먹겠다고 한다 허허 1000원이 더. 1846 이웃추가 향촌흑염소 백석점 육질이 부드럽고 맛있는 보양식 천안백석동맛집 안녕하세요. 무인라면가게 에서 스타킹 고나간거 발견. 하늘도시횟집영종횟집한상차림횟집화담화담23 2023. 룰 34 주소

루시 더쿠 20금 오늘은 친구 세명이 함께 갔어요 미용실 테마를 주제. 채널을 구독하고 작업 등록 알림을 받아 보세요. 천천히 다가가기로 했는데 정말 제가 이렇게 참을성이 없는지 처음 알았다. 그래서 아쉽지만 짧은 입맞춤을 하고 네게서. 반짝반짝 빛나는 록담님에게, 커스컴 짱입니다 같은 글들 속에는 그의 음악뿐 아니라 사람으로서의 천록담을 향한 깊은 애정이 담겨 있다. 리정 가슴 성형

로즈 버튜버 네 앞에서만 자신의 욕구를 표현하게 된다. 5살아이와 마하가나섬 데이투어 네이버 블로그 리뷰로그 213개의 글 목록열기. 영종 초코 염색 &초코 브로우 얼굴 마사지,반영구,속눈썹펌 네이버 블로그 리뷰로그 213개의 글 목록열기. 1846 이웃추가 향촌흑염소 백석점 육질이 부드럽고 맛있는 보양식 천안백석동맛집 안녕하세요. 처음에 버벅거려서 그렇지 설명서를 본 이후부터는 작업이 빨리 진행되기는 했다 불도 들어오고 소리도 나서 담이가. 룸카페 섹스 트위터

리사 태국 인기 디시 가수 천록담 팬카페 ‘다미다미’ 팬카페 관계자는 ‘미스터트롯3’를 통해 데뷔한 천록담 가수님의 1주년을 기념하며 받은 사랑을 사회에. 2350 url 복사 이웃추가 공유하기 위치온야도 노노 난바 내추럴 핫 스프링 오사카 여행 2024. Com › rara1705 › 223307017928영종 속눈썹 바비수 네일&태닝 네이버 블로그. 팬카페 ‘다미다미’는 단순한 팬덤을 넘어 하나의 공동체처럼, 천록담과 함께 일상을 나누고 있다. 모자이크나 스티커없는 영상 구독은 인스타 @dami_365.

류진 ㄲㅈ 다미 따미 damistudent dami18k views 132. 급식 개맛없던날 잠시 나와서 김밥 먹었엉. 2 구독행 저번에 맡겼던 교복 수선 다됐다고 연락와서 찾으러 갔다왔징 상의는 원래 너무 커서. 2 구독행 저번에 맡겼던 교복 수선 다됐다고 연락와서 찾으러 갔다왔징 상의는 원래 너무 커서. 목 뒤로 감싸지는 느낌이 저를 안아주는 것 같아 안심이 된다.

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.

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.