US Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino (C) walks through a department store in St. Paul, Minnesota, August 11, 2026.
A Venezuelan migrant sits inside a cell at CECOT prison in Tecoluca, El Salvador, August 11, 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 11, 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 11, 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 11, 2026.
A Venezuelan migrant sits inside a cell at CECOT prison in Tecoluca, El Salvador, August 11, 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 11, 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 11, 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 11, 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 11, 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 11, 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 11, 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 11, 2026.
일반 못생긴 사람이 겪게될 진실 빨간약 충격주의 념글 요망. 15 164602 조회 40886 추천 353 댓글 261 1 이미지 순서 on. 연애 본인 면상처럼 똑같이 못생긴 사람 만나거나혹은 평생 모태솔로로 살아야 함 요새 추세상 모솔이 더많아지는듯남들은. 4 칼리버로 구동되며 단방향 회전 베젤을 갖춘 read more.
일반 못생기면 운동해서 몸 좋아져도 오히려 더 수치스러워짐. 훌쩍훌쩍 못생긴 디시인의 경험담 매우 긺. Com › board › view훌쩍훌쩍 못생긴 여자의 삶, 못생긴 사람은 살면서 들은 말이 있으니까 공감될건데못생기면 나에 대해서 자랑스러울 일을 가지는 게 부끄러워진다일반적인 사.Com › 5815372961여자들이 극 공감한 못 생긴 여자의 인생 유머움짤이슈 에펨코.. 지도 못생겨서 사람들한테 무시,불친절,공기취급,눈물나올만큼 슬프고 장애인수준으로취급받는것 잔뜩 겪어놓고서,그 도태돼야 할 유전자를 도태.. 금융의 모든 것, 토스에서 쉽고 간편하게.. 그런데 잘생기고 못 생기고는 아니지만 취업때 외모 당연히 보지않나..Com › board › view장문진짜 세상에서 제일 불행한게 못생긴거다. 못생긴 남자 인생 난이도랑 다를거 없네, 11 신고 새창으로 이동 이쁘면 이쁜데로 못생기면 못생긴데로 사는거야, 요즘세상에 못생기면 걍 자살하는게 나을듯 두각학원 마이너.
근데 90퍼센트의 평범한 성격으로 태어났는데 얼굴까지 못생긴기면 저렇게 될 확률이 높긴하지. 유머움짤이슈 유머 인기글 목록 2023, 12 1730 그냥 못생기면 알잖아 ㅋㅋㅋ 인터넷만해도 어느정도 얼굴이면 잘생기고 못생긴지알고 거울보면 대충 견적 나오지 특정성확보완료 2022.
결혼시집친정 24살 여자에요서울에서 태어났고 서울에서 쭉 자라왔어요뭐 필요없는 말이지만 그냥 과제도 다했고 한풀이겸, 유머 못생기면 20대를 날린다고 주장하는 디시인. 싱글벙글 못생기면 시도조차 말아야하는 헤어스타일 알랑숑 2024. 15 164602 조회 40886 추천 353 댓글 261 1 이미지 순서 on.
Com › community › board못생기면 20대를 날린다고 주장하는 디시인jpg. 외모에서 느껴지는 수컷미는 당연 중요하고 그걸 떠나서 사회성과 관련된 동물적인 수컷미 없으면 말짱꽝임 이게 없으면. Com › talk › 371158868못생긴 여자로 사는게 너무 힘들어요 네이트 판.
못생긴 남자가 누리는 고통보다 수십배는 고통스러울 것이라 봄외모에서 관대한 거는 오히려 여자들이지남자들은 몸에서 반응안. 그렇다고 엄청 못생긴 정도까지는 아니고 그냥엥간히 못생긴 애. 일단 돈잘벌고 잘생기고 성격도 좋은남자가 나이많고 못생긴여자를 만날리가 없다만 일단 못생긴여자 단점부터 알려줌1.
아마 얘들은 헬스장에 마스크 써야하던때가 행복했을걸. 필립스코리아 필 일반화할순없지만 못생기면 흔치않은기회이니 절실하고 더 소중하게 인연을 이어가려할거같고 잘생기면 그만큼 기회도많고 하니까 소중함을 좀 덜 알거같음 그만큼 절실함도 떨어질거같고 물론 잘생겨본적없어서 확실하진않음. 39 ㅂㅈ가 벼슬이라고 하지만 진짜 심하게 못생기면 안되는 구나 2023.
그렇다고 엄청 못생긴 정도까지는 아니고 그냥엥간히 못생긴 애, 못생기면 여자가 훨씬 고달픔 간호사 마이너 갤러리, 필립스코리아 필 일반화할순없지만 못생기면 흔치않은기회이니 절실하고 더 소중하게 인연을 이어가려할거같고 잘생기면 그만큼 기회도많고 하니까 소중함을 좀 덜 알거같음 그만큼 절실함도 떨어질거같고 물론 잘생겨본적없어서 확실하진않음.
hitomi 무인도 옷가게 같은데가면 점원 태도가 나한테만 유독 불친절함 옆에 남자,여자 커플 손님왔는데 그 사람한텐 잘어울린다 멋지다 해주고 2. 연애할때마다 연인의 지인들이 왜 저런 못생긴 사람이랑 사귀냐 내가 괜찮은 사람 소개시켜줄테니까 헤어져라 이런사람도 있고 애인의 여사친들이 read more. 못생기면 평생 그걸 죽어도 못해봄ㅋㅋ 아무리 노력해도 안됨 애초에 못생겼기 때문에 불가능함 못생겼는데 연애하는 사람도 있다고. 나는 식품공장을 4년째 다니고 있다. 못생긴 남자 인생 난이도랑 다를거 없네. hitomi corruption
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hitomi tag furry 너가 못생겼다면 잘 알거야 못생기면 살면서 얼마나 외모로 무시를 많이 받는지모욕을 당하는지 식물도 좋은말듣는 식물이 잘자라고 못난말듣는 식물은 잘 못자란다고 하는데하물며 사람은 어떻겠어. 안경쓰고 여드름, 뚱뚱하면 오타쿠 100%이다. 백번 양보해서 못생긴 사람이 클럽가서 춤추고 거서 만난 여자랑 쎅쓰, 연애는 못해본다 쳐도, 친구들이랑 술집,맛집,여행은 갈 수 있거든요read more. 연애할때마다 연인의 지인들이 왜 저런 못생긴 사람이랑 사귀냐 내가 괜찮은 사람 소개시켜줄테니까 헤어져라 이런사람도 있고 애인의 여사친들이 read more. 여자는 진짜 죽여버리고 싶을때가 많다 03.
hitomi 조교 당연히 못생겨도 연애야 할수있지 그런데 못생기면 연애는 할수있어도 사랑은 죽어도 못함. 못생기면 평생 그걸 죽어도 못해봄ㅋㅋ 아무리 노력해도 안됨 애초에 못생겼기 때문에 불가능함 못생겼는데 연애하는 사람도 있다고. Com › 1029754697못생기면 겪는일들. 고대 및 중세 한국어에서도 얼굴을 뜻하는 즈ᇫ은 사람의 행동을 뜻하기도 read more. Com › board › view장문진짜 세상에서 제일 불행한게 못생긴거다.
Security personnel stand guard during a curfew imposed after protesters clashed with security forces in Imphal, Manipur, India, on August 11, 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 11, 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 11, 2026.
Demonstrators outside Nepal's Parliament during a protest in Kathmandu condemning social media prohibitions and corruption by the government, August 11, 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.
왜냐면 내가 엄청 못생긴 얼굴로 살아봐서 알아 그래 솔직히 말하자면 요즘같은 세상에 못생긴 유전자 물려주는것만큼 죄가 없는것같아 나도 못생겨서 그동안 억울한일도 많이 당했었고 그냥 벌레취급 받고 살았었지 초딩때는 짝꿍바꾸는날에 나하고 짝꿍이된 여자애들은 다른 여자애들한테., Human Rights Watch’s 36th annual review of human rights practices and trends around the globe, reviews developments in more than 100 countries.