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.

필사적으로 썰고있는 화교분탕 뿌팍스님. 거액 광고비로 한국돈 엄청 쳐먹은 거 다 토해내게 만들고 추방 시켜야 됨. 화교 학교를 다녔는데, 일곱살부터 다녀요. 특징은 여럿이 있지 일단 가족들 출생이 불분명하거나 즈그 애미애비 일때문에 잠깐 중국.

지금은 화교니 재미동포니 하는 식으로 어디 출신인지 어느 국적인지 잘 안 따졌지만 예전 90년대엔 그 수가 적다보니 화교출신이나 해외 태생이면 많은 주목을 받았었습니다.. 고교까지 화교 학교를 다니고 졸업하자마자 바로 대학에 들어갔는데 화교 학교는 교과서가 다 중국어로 돼 있어요..

라나 Asmr 야동

에스파닝닝이도 피해갈수 없는 인사 논란. 고교까지 화교 학교를 다니고 졸업하자마자 바로 대학에 들어갔는데 화교 학교는 교과서가 다 중국어로 돼 있어요. 화교분탕들의 메건 연애썰 날조 현무아재 남자 연예인. 일간베스트 미국에서 보는 한국출신 화교들 전라도 경영학 출신 사이비교주 유튜버 50억 갈취 ㄷㄷㄷㄷㄷㄷ, Com 추천검색 nft 발행하기 안내 레이어 개념글 추천하기 60고정닉 추천수1 비추천하기 0 실베추 공유 신고 목록보기.

게다가 연예인 수도 적다보니 조금 인기가 있는 연예인들은 그들의 일거수일투족이 전부 대중에게 공개가 되었죠. 한국계라 속이는 중국대만화교 연예인 인플루언서 모음 재업. 한국인 중에 누가 저렇게 여섯 개를 손가락으로 펴 보임.

26 2228 조회 7,327 +2025년 01월 27일 랭킹 더보기 톡톡 10대 이야기 채널보기, 26 2228 조회 7,327 +2025년 01월 27일 랭킹 더보기 톡톡 10대 이야기 채널보기. 26 2228 조회 7,327 +2025년 01월 27일 랭킹 더보기 톡톡 10대 이야기 채널보기, 지금 미디어에 나오는 모든 유명인들은 화교자본과 카르텔 바이럴로 띄운 화교긔 한국이 완전히 공산화 되면 그들이 화교였다는 사실을 드러낼거긔 아직은 100% 홍콩처럼 먹히지 않아서 기다리고 있는거긔 그리고 한국인들에게 알릴거긔.

레전드di동

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연예인 개새끼들 최소 절반이상은 화교 짱깨 좆족으로 봐야함. 아는 사람들은 알겠지만국내 뜨는 연예인 80% 이상은 화교정치인 50%의료인 40%니들 생각하는 거 이상으로 화교 엄청 많음저번에 군인 총 탈취하려던, 화교 카르텔 픽이었으면 노래 인기있는데도 김정남이 탈퇴할만큼 사장한테 구타, 학대당하고 활동 막혔었겠음, 아는 사람들은 알겠지만국내 뜨는 연예인 80% 이상은 화교정치인 50%의료인 40%니들 생각하는 거 이상으로 화교 엄청 많음저번에 군인 총 탈취하려던.

이거 국민들이 알면 충격받을듯 dc official app. 요즘들어 의사, 법조인 상당수가 화교라는 글들이 올라오다가 연예인, 유튜버 같은 유명인들도 화교라고 주장하는 글들도 많이 올라오던데 왜 갑자기 저런 글들이 늘어났나 궁금해지더라고요. 갤러리 본문 영역 중국화교 아닌데 화교몰이 당한 연예인 ㅇㅇ121, 한국식 숫가락 세기도 화짱조식이라는 잘못된 정보 선동해서 퍼트리는 중이다.

라쿠카라차 브레인롯

0490f719b5826bf620b5c6b011f11a39ce9f8aff6ec6e6c4 17, Com › talk › 373867043화교 연예인 인기많은거 개싫다 네이트 판, 화교 학교를 다녔는데, 일곱살부터 다녀요.

레나 av배우 한국계라 속이는 중국대만화교 연예인 인플루언서 모음 재업. 한국연예인 80프로가 화교다 미국 정치 마이너 갤러리. 중국이 커지기 전 화교 연예인들, 정치적 발언 안했는데. 화교 입시특혜 대상이었으면 대학을 4수하고도 네임벨류 없는 한세대에 갔겠음. 한국식 숫가락 세기도 화짱조식이라는 잘못된 정보 선동해서 퍼트리는 중이다. 레제 야동배우

레즈 섹트 화교 의심 연예인 모음집 미국 정치 마이너 갤러리. 필사적으로 썰고있는 화교분탕 뿌팍스님. 필사적으로 썰고있는 화교분탕 뿌팍스님. 엄마 이름은 심지어 ‘변ㄱㅏ화’ 멤버구 ㅈ엽생긴. 명백하게 중국에서 살았거나 중국인들만 다니는 화교 학교를 다녔다는 이야기 밖에 안 되지. 라임이 leaked

디아이돌 제니 모음 디시 한국식 숫가락 세기도 화짱조식이라는 잘못된 정보 선동해서 퍼트리는 중이다. 그 밖에 앰블랙 천둥하고 남매인 산다라박좆그맨 김수용도 화교라긔. 엄마 이름은 심지어 ‘변ㄱㅏ화’ 멤버구 ㅈ엽생긴. 연예인 개새끼들 최소 절반이상은 화교 짱깨 좆족으로 봐야함. 0490f719b5826bf620b5c6b011f11a39ce9f8aff6ec6e6c4 17. 레제 갤

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렉시 레이브 화교 입시특혜 대상이었으면 대학을 4수하고도 네임벨류 없는 한세대에 갔겠음. 연예인 개새끼들 최소 절반이상은 화교 짱깨 좆족으로 봐야함. Redirecting to sgall. Redirecting to sgall. 화교 하니까 갑자기 소름돋는게 ㅇㅇ106.

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.