US Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino (C) walks through a department store in St. Paul, Minnesota, June 5, 2026.
A Venezuelan migrant sits inside a cell at CECOT prison in Tecoluca, El Salvador, June 5, 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 5, 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 5, 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 5, 2026.
A Venezuelan migrant sits inside a cell at CECOT prison in Tecoluca, El Salvador, June 5, 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 5, 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 5, 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 5, 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 5, 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 5, 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 5, 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 5, 2026.
마스크때문인지 모낭염으로 2달정도 고생중인데 그 전까진 그래도 적당히 봐주만했는데 한 일주일사이에 개씹창남 면도도. 쉐이빙폼을 듬뿍 바르고 1차 2차 면도로 나누어 진행. 사진잇습니다ㅠㅠ 이런증상이있는지는 몇년된거같은데평상시에는 별증상은없는데 뭘까궁급합니다모낭염이 터지고 낫고 반복하면 저렇게 생겼나요. 의사가 많이 나았으니 소독만 간단히 받고.
본인 피부타임 수분부족형 지성 첫 모낭염 발생지 정수리 부근 머리 두번째 발생지 턱 1주차 그렇게 머리 곳곳으로 골고루 확산되고.. 자연적 치유보통 1년 그리고 혈관 레이저, 엑셀v 같은 시술입니다.. ① 세균이 성장하기 적합한 후덥지근한 곳은 피하는 것이 좋습니다..
| 각질층 과각화를 조절해 피지가 막히지 않게 하고, 멜라닌 생성을. | 수험생인데 에스로반 바르니까 가려워서 집중력도 엄청 떨어지고 해서 모낭염인지 그냥 여드름 흉터 자국인지모르겠네. | Com › mgallery › board모낭염 마이너 갤러리 커뮤니티 포털 디시인사이드. | Com › board › view혐오주의진짜죽고싶다 얼굴 전체에 모낭염 번짐 여드름 갤러리. |
|---|---|---|---|
| 제대로 진단을 받고 싶어서 피부과를 다녀오고 증상에 대해서 알게되었다. | 나이가 들면 나아지려나 싶었는데, 30대 후반까지도 계속되더라구요. | 일반 몸에 모낭염 자국난거 없애는데 얼마나 걸리냐. | 모낭염 자국 안없어지는데 피부 마이너 갤러리. |
| Io › questions › 4b7951906910efa9bdc34e모낭염 자국이 사라지지 않아요. | 여드름 갤러리에 다양한 이야기를 남겨주세요. | 피부염은 이유를 알기도 힘들고 판단을 흐리게 만드는 매체들이 너무 많아서 다들 삽질을 많이 하는것 같다. | 등 여드름자국 모낭염자국 자가 치료 해보기로 했다 향수. |
| 벌써 한 달이 지났는데도 자국이 사라지지 않고 있어서 걱정됩니다. | Com › board › view안녕하세요. | 시기와 판독이 잘못된 반복적인 자가 모낭염 압출. | 자신의 피부가 기름이 많은 지성피부이다. |
| 나이가 들면 나아지려나 싶었는데, 30대 후반까지도 계속되더라구요. | 자국심하기보이고 왜이런거임 맨날 피부. | 불온한 기운이 아주 약간 남아있긴 하지만 거의다 사라지고 깨끗해졌다. | Org › health › nmedinfo모낭염 folliculitis 의학정보 건강정보 서울대학교병원. |
Com › ceo_ellie › 223938746993얼굴 모낭염 증상 관리안하면 자국남는다 네이버 블로그.. 효과는 좋은 편이라 급할 시엔 유용하지만 모낭염이 자주 나는 사람들의 경우 비용이 문제..
가끔 여드름과 모낭염을 헷갈려하는 갤러들 있는데여드름은 모공의 염증이고모낭염은 모낭의 염증이다여드름치료를 시작하고 34개월이 지나도차도가 없다면 만성모낭염을 의심해 봐야함 로아를 복용한지 4달이 지나도 염증성 농포. 나이가 들면 나아지려나 싶었는데, 30대 후반까지도 계속되더라구요, Redirecting to sgall. 모냥염 특징인건지 관자놀이 부분처럼 저렇게 올라왔던 자리에 번지면서 나는 느낌 존재하지 않는 이미지입니다.
헬스장 인포 남자 디시 ① 세균이 성장하기 적합한 후덥지근한 곳은 피하는 것이 좋습니다. 피부염은 이유를 알기도 힘들고 판단을 흐리게 만드는 매체들이 너무 많아서 다들 삽질을 많이 하는것 같다. 원인은 노폐물이 원활하게 제거가 안 되거나 각질이 쌓여 각질, 피지를 먹이로 삼는 모낭충들의 증가 해결법 피부에 자극이 안 가는 선에서 각질제거, 꼼꼼한 클렌징 약알칼리성 폼클렌징 자신의 피부가 건조하고 민감한 건성피부이다. 이소티논 복용 3주차모낭염때문에 원래는 미노씬 4개월정도 먹다가 좁쌀 안잡혀서일주일 휴약하고 이소티논 시작미노씬 끊으니까 모낭염 존나 번짐그래서 병원 가서 루리드정 항생제 받아서 하루 2번 일주일동안 먹는 중근데 모. 벤조일 모낭염 났다고 이거 바르는 순간 턱 면역력 씹창나는 지름길이니 평생 턱 안보일 자신있으면 바르셈 이버멕틴, 수란트라 정확하지는 않지만 모낭충을 죽이는 거지 황색포도상구균을 죽이지는 못하는 거 같더라 한달반째 효과없어서 버림. 햄스터 비디오
허벌 느낌 시기와 판독이 잘못된 반복적인 자가 모낭염 압출. 제대로 진단을 받고 싶어서 피부과를 다녀오고 증상에 대해서 알게되었다. 모낭염+여드름 완치했다 피부 마이너 갤러리. 나도 사실 디시글을 신뢰하는 편이라 일단은 영양제로 해결하기로 했어. 턱선 라인이랑 입주변 볼 이마에 조금 나는데 둘다 해당되는건가. 화장실 똥냄새 디시
협동타워디펜스 특성 자연적 치유보통 1년 그리고 혈관 레이저, 엑셀v 같은 시술입니다. 잠을 잘자고 유산균을 잘쳐먹고 이런내용은 생략할게 너무 당연한 내용이고 저것도 안하면서 치료되길 바라는놈은 없지. Com › ceo_ellie › 223938746993얼굴 모낭염 증상 관리안하면 자국남는다 네이버 블로그. 쉐이빙폼을 듬뿍 바르고 1차 2차 면도로 나누어 진행. ① 세균이 성장하기 적합한 후덥지근한 곳은 피하는 것이 좋습니다. 현프로디테 졸사
해 르시 팬 트리 모낭염을 예방하는 생활습관 관리 방법은 다음과 같습니다. Io › questions › 4b7951906910efa9bdc34e모낭염 자국이 사라지지 않아요. 자국, 흉터, 색소침착의 주요 원인 클렌징, 딥 클렌징 세정력이 매우 강한 세안제로 유난히 염증을 뽀드득하게 닦아내는 마찰 세안. 여드름 갤러리에 다양한 이야기를 남겨주세요. Com › board › view모낭염 정리해준다 여드름 갤러리.
해골 이모티콘 밈 노래 일반 몸에 모낭염 자국난거 없애는데 얼마나 걸리냐. 턱선 라인이랑 입주변 볼 이마에 조금 나는데 둘다 해당되는건가. 턱선 라인이랑 입주변 볼 이마에 조금 나는데 둘다 해당되는건가. 오늘 피부과에서 여드름약 받아왔는데 갑자기 모낭염일수도 있단 생각이 듦. 여드름 나는 애들은 모낭염인지 잘 확인해보고 모낭염이면 다른거 하지말고 수란트라만 23주 발라봐라.
Security personnel stand guard during a curfew imposed after protesters clashed with security forces in Imphal, Manipur, India, on June 5, 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 5, 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 5, 2026.
Demonstrators outside Nepal's Parliament during a protest in Kathmandu condemning social media prohibitions and corruption by the government, June 5, 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.
나 턱에 붉은자국 많이 남았는데 모낭이 아니라 여드름이였던거임., Human Rights Watch’s 36th annual review of human rights practices and trends around the globe, reviews developments in more than 100 countries.