US Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino (C) walks through a department store in St. Paul, Minnesota, August 17, 2026.
A Venezuelan migrant sits inside a cell at CECOT prison in Tecoluca, El Salvador, August 17, 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 17, 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 17, 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 17, 2026.
A Venezuelan migrant sits inside a cell at CECOT prison in Tecoluca, El Salvador, August 17, 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 17, 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 17, 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 17, 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 17, 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 17, 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 17, 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 17, 2026.
Regardless, in my opinion, bad move all around. Visit olive garden today. Geramita, an internet star known as nonna gracie, shares video recipes to her internet grandchildren, and started her own olive oil brand with the help of gresia, a social media strategist. There are plenty of more effective ways to use social media then this, and quite frankly i’m surprised a brand so widely known choose or allowed this path.
Wait, is olive garden problematic now.. This notice applies to personal information we collect from or about you during your visits to our websites, mobile applications, social media pages, or other digital channels, via your inrestaurant interactions with us or inrestaurant devices owned or controlled by us, or when you otherwise interact with us collectively, the services..Being a regular just got more rewarding. We developed breadstick nation as a platform for new breadstick products and experiences, such as breadstick sandwiches and olive garden food trucks. Dont post photos videos on property or in uniform, Almost 30 minutes to get our food and they wasn’t even busy. National pasta day calls for a neverending celebration.
| 00 2 weeks ago drg talent social media strategist lincoln, ne 2 days ago travel interventional radiology technologist $3,458 per week a1fvx000002hg8pyau. | For a lot of people, social media is a direct line to a company’s customer service. | The darden family currently includes darden, olive garden, longhorn steakhouse, cheddars scratch kitchen, yard house, the capital grille, the capital burger, seasons 52, bahama breeze and eddie vs, as well as our affiliates, and subsidiaries. | Even if it’s not an official olive garden brand, the fact is, most people will associate the offer with it coming from olive garden. |
|---|---|---|---|
| From neverending servings of our freshly baked breadsticks and iconic garden salad, to our homemade soups and sauces, theres something for everyone to enjoy. | Clarifying the olive oil garden myth what it really is a viral gardening misconception, why it doesn’t work, and what actually does for healthy soil and plant growth. | According to justin sikora, darden director of public. | Platforms like instagram and facebook serve as key outlets for sharing appealing visuals of their dishes and behindthescenes content featuring their kitchen and staff. |
| Platforms like instagram and facebook serve as key outlets for sharing appealing visuals of their dishes and behindthescenes content featuring their kitchen and staff. | The brand continues to anchor darden restaurants’ portfolio, with olive garden segment sales for fiscal year 2024 estimated at roughly 5. | There are plenty of more effective ways to use social media then this, and quite frankly i’m surprised a brand so widely known choose or allowed this path. | About a year ago, if you posted a question, complaint or compliment on one of olive garden’s social media pages, the company probably would have ignored you. |
For a lot of people, social media is a direct line to a company’s customer service, 5,938,627 likes 6,869 talking about this 2,889,304 were here. About us olive garden italian restaurant, Popular diy olive garden recipes. For a lot of people, social media is a direct line to a company’s customer service.
Browse 1,324 authentic olive garden stock photos, highres images, and pictures, or explore additional the olive garden or olive garden food stock images to. Platforms like instagram and facebook serve as key outlets for sharing appealing visuals of their dishes and behindthescenes content featuring their kitchen and staff, Dont miss out before it disappears. We developed breadstick nation as a platform for new breadstick products and experiences, such as breadstick sandwiches and olive garden food trucks, When youre here, youre family. About a year ago, if you posted a question, complaint or compliment on one of olive garden’s social media pages, the company probably would have ignored you.
Different animals offbroadway in 2013 different animals all her life, jessica tarver has clung to the gospels of romantic comedy and happilyeverafter. Many fans have taken to social media platforms and cooking blogs to share their take on olive garden recipes, Even if it’s not an official olive garden brand, the fact is, most people will associate the offer with it coming from olive garden.
Com › olivegardenolive garden @olivegarden instagram photos and videos. But by her late twenties, she finds, Changs gift card panera bread gift card papa johns gift card payoneer paypal pottery barn gift card proam golf gift card pubg gift card rainforest cafe gift card razer gold gift card red lobster gift card red robin. Com › search › gardenolivegarden olive from midland, tx, 2705 w loop 250 n — view profile. See current address, phone number, email, social media profiles facebook, instagram + browse public records for garden olive in midland, tx.
Com › name › gardenolivegarden olive from bakersfield, ca, 6704 n half moon drive, Olive garden @olivegarden posts x. about a year ago, if you posted a question, complaint or compliment on one of olive garden’s social pages, you’d probably be ignored, When youre here, youre family. 1,918 likes, 53 comments olivegarden on octo the life of the olive garden social team ️🔥, Com › olivegarden@olivegarden x.
Wait, is olive garden problematic now, Andys answers olive gardens 5 steps to turn around their, The discussion reveals fun insights into the characteristics of those born under taurus, particularly around food and lifestyle choices, 6k+ following 2286 posts @olivegarden when youre here, youre family.
Dont post photos videos on property or in uniform.. 6 billion dollars, based on recent.. National pasta day calls for a neverending celebration..
Olive garden philippines, How olive garden plans to win back guests with value, From neverending servings of our freshly baked breadsticks and iconic.
놀쟈 뉴스 Social media rolivegarden. Ph olivegardenph bythebistrogroup. This notice applies to personal information we collect from or about you during your visits to our websites, mobile applications, social media pages, or other digital channels, via your inrestaurant interactions with us or inrestaurant devices owned or controlled by us, or when you otherwise interact with us collectively, the services. Days ago in an unexpected twist, a recent post on social media about quirky habits of taurus individuals has sparked lively debate among people. We may share your personal information within the darden family of restaurants. 노 익스 강 롤 디시
네토 바닐라 a breadstick from popular restaurant chain olive garden has drawn attention on social media for seemingly having a few alphanumeric characters on it. This year, the neverending pasta bowl will become available to all customers starting on august 26. 1324 olive garden stock photos, highres pictures, and. Am i the only one sick of all the social media videos. According to justin sikora, darden director of public. 남자가 여자 머리카락 만지는 이유
남매근친썰 Among other distressing food revelations of the week class warfare found a new home in olive garden, via twitter. Com › name › gardenolivegarden olive from bakersfield, ca, 6704 n half moon drive. Being a regular just got more rewarding. When you’re here, you’re family. According to justin sikora, darden director of public. 남자 키 160후반 디시
놀쟈 메리 Social media rolivegarden. The olive garden experience without the restaurant if you’re in canada and have a longing for olive garden’s famous dishes, another option is to recreate the experience at home. Com › usbiz › olivegarden_533eolive garden 1910 ne pine island rd, cape coral, fl 33909. Salad not cold and kind of wilty, service from out waiter not good. In fact, the casualdining giant has priced more than 800.
네스프레소캡슐자판기 The discussion reveals fun insights into the characteristics of those born under taurus, particularly around food and lifestyle choices. 5,938,627 likes 6,869 talking about this 2,889,304 were here. National pasta day calls for a neverending celebration. The brand continues to anchor darden restaurants’ portfolio, with olive garden segment sales for fiscal year 2024 estimated at roughly 5. a breadstick from popular restaurant chain olive garden has drawn attention on social media for seemingly having a few alphanumeric characters on it.
Security personnel stand guard during a curfew imposed after protesters clashed with security forces in Imphal, Manipur, India, on August 17, 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 17, 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 17, 2026.
Demonstrators outside Nepal's Parliament during a protest in Kathmandu condemning social media prohibitions and corruption by the government, August 17, 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.
A key signal users sharing gallonsized takeout containers of olive garden soup went viral, highlighting both portion value and emotional attachment to the flavor profile., Human Rights Watch’s 36th annual review of human rights practices and trends around the globe, reviews developments in more than 100 countries.