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.

진짜 출장와서 한번 ㄷㄸ이라도 받아보려고 메이투완으로 스파, 사우나 가서 10만14만 짜리 마사지 받아도 ㄷㄸ은 커녕 만지지도 않네ㅋㅋㅋㅋread more. 마카오에 놀러오는 중국여자들 진짜 다 프리함 이 세번째 여행 마지막날 비행기 시간 기다리며 전자바카라했는데카지노1층에 있음 3만불 넣어서 50. 홍콩 3박 4일 다녀오기에는 너무 아쉬운 곳이다. 동남아는 아니지만 주말에 마카오 다녀온 썰 여행.

Candfans 구독

Chaeira Coomer

엑셀런트 사우나는 마카오 반도 지역 그랜드 엠퍼러 호텔 grand emperor hotel 10층에 위치해 있습니다.. 각 마카오 사우나의 언니 수는 시간대에 따라 다른데요.. 진짜 출장와서 한번 ㄷㄸ이라도 받아보려고 메이투완으로 스파, 사우나 가서 10만14만 짜리 마사지 받아도 ㄷㄸ은 커녕 만지지도 않네ㅋㅋㅋㅋread more..

Cyberpunk Hitomi

마카오 취마에 비해서 홍콩 취마는 저렴합니다, 길거리 헌팅하는 2인 1조로 룸하나씩 잡아서 장사하니 횽들은 자기 호텔 델꼬갈 생각하지말고 기집들이 잡은 룸으로가서 하면 된다. 마카오유흥은 눈먼돈이 많은곳이라서 가성비 최악 차라리 주해 방문비자받고 들어가서 케이티비를 가도록. 길거리 헌팅하는 2인 1조로 룸하나씩 잡아서 장사하니 횽들은 자기 호텔 델꼬갈 생각하지말고 기집들이 잡은 룸으로가서 하면 된다.

C컵 B컵 차이 디시

마카오유흥은 눈먼돈이 많은곳이라서 가성비 최악 차라리 주해 방문비자받고 들어가서 케이티비를 가도록. App 마사지호텔석식천계산만선산정주유람선, Com › postview마카오의 밤문화 싸우나 네이버 블로그.

Dc 더케이

마카오 클럽 파라 para 오늘밤은 삐딱하게 생생후기 블로그, 여행풍경 카테고리로 분류된 여행중국, 홍콩, 마카오 갤러리 입니다, 2000년도 들어서 연예인들이나 유명인들의 원정도박이 주로 필리핀에서 이루어지는 것으로 보도되지만 아시아에서 도박의 메카 하면 아직도 단연코 마카오입니다. 여행중국, 홍콩, 마카오 갤러리 커뮤니티 포털 디시인사이드. 한줄요약 존나 천박하고 음탕한데 존나 비쌈ktv 이런곳 말고 홍콩 마카오 제대로 간판 내건 업소들만 다녔는데 괜히 차이나머니 차이나머니 하는게 아니더라미미마사지 와 진짜 최고의 경험이었음숏타임에 8천위안, 마카오 사우나는 마카오반도에 거의 있는데.

ca 101 kmib 초스압 도박갤러리 마카오 앵벌이 썰 12txt. 마카오 에펠탑 뷰 특가 10% 할인 쿠폰 제공. App 마사지호텔석식천계산만선산정주유람선. 영어로는 일본어에서 온 외래어 karaoke캐러오키에 가깝게 발음라고 말하며, read more. 아시아 여행에 관한 정보를 공유하는 디시인사이드 갤러리입니다. dduen2

chunsa tv 마카오,내몽골,만주국,극단주의,트럼프,도널드 트럼프,바이든,조 바이든,해리스,카말라 해리스,대통령,선거,투표,철학,종교,기독교,커뮤,권양숙,애플,핸드폰,스마트폰. 저녁에 훠궈샤브샤브먹고 심심해서 호텔에서. Com › bbs › life_macauoncapan. 진짜 출장와서 한번 ㄷㄸ이라도 받아보려고 메이투완으로 스파, 사우나 가서 10만14만 짜리 마사지 받아도 ㄷㄸ은 커녕 만지지도 않네ㅋㅋㅋㅋ서비스 ㄷㄸ 10만원 입 15만원 추가하라 ㅇㅈㄹ하지 않나25만원주고 ㄷ. 여행중국, 홍콩, 마카오 갤러리에 다양한 이야기를 남겨주세요. dcinside 방귀 갤러리

chinese femdom xhamster 단순히 몸을 씻고 휴식하는 공간이 아니라, 마사지식음ktv엔터테인먼트까지 결합된 복합 공간으로 발전해왔습니다. 저 한테는 큰돈이지만 도박하시는 분들에게는 얼마 안되는 1000홍콩 달러를 마카오 카지노에서 잃어서 다시는 게임을 안 할듯합니다. 마카오澳門, macau는 중국의 특별행정구이다. 메뉴에 보니 코리안 마사지, 유러피언 마사지, 타이마사지 등등이 써있고 나중에 말씀드리겠지만 실제로는 번호표 색깔로 가격이 구분되더군요 아무튼 read more. 마카오 알파벳 블랙 abcbet 차무식 스마일 파리스 풀빠따 abs 카지노 럭키비키 마사지맛집 +1 마사지맛집 마사지코리아 +1 마사지코리아 av. code jh 101

c컵데뷔넥슨 마카오 사우나 갔는데 이쁜 친구들 있기는 하지만 가격이 너무 비싸네요. 마카오 에펠탑 뷰 특가 10% 할인 쿠폰 제공. Com › mgallery › board모든것을 다 말해주는 마카오 후기 최종화 여행 마이너 갤러리. 영어로는 일본어에서 온 외래어 karaoke캐러오키에 가깝게 발음라고 말하며, read more. ㄸ집이나 대ㄸ방이나 ㅠㅠ 넘나 하고싶다.

daniellexxvv sex erome 진짜 출장와서 한번 ㄷㄸ이라도 받아보려고 메이투완으로 스파, 사우나 가서 10만14만 짜리 마사지 받아도 ㄷㄸ은 커녕 만지지도 않네ㅋㅋㅋㅋread more. 밤문화를 더욱 풍성하게 만들어주는 마카오 최고의 유흥 시설부터 여행의 피로를 말끔히 씻어줄 럭셔리 사우나까지, 현지인들이 직접 추천하는 곳들을 완벽히 정리했습니다. 마카오 유흥 더원 사우나는 프리미엄 사우나로, 입장료 1,588 hkd로 15시간 체류와 무제한 식음료를 제공합니다. 마카오,내몽골,만주국,극단주의,트럼프,도널드 트럼프,바이든,조 바이든,해리스,카말라 해리스,대통령,선거,투표,철학,종교,기독교,커뮤,권양숙,애플,핸드폰,스마트폰. 여행중국, 홍콩, 마카오 갤러리 커뮤니티 포털 디시인사이드.

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.