US Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino (C) walks through a department store in St. Paul, Minnesota, June 8, 2026.
A Venezuelan migrant sits inside a cell at CECOT prison in Tecoluca, El Salvador, June 8, 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 8, 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 8, 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 8, 2026.
A Venezuelan migrant sits inside a cell at CECOT prison in Tecoluca, El Salvador, June 8, 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 8, 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 8, 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 8, 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 8, 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 8, 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 8, 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 8, 2026.
Gabriel carvalho 플레이어 프로필 2526 transfermarkt. 2007년생 에스테방 이후 나타난 2007년생 윙어, 시야나 킥이 굉장히 좋다. 다음은 2025 코파 리베르타도레스에 참가하는 가장 유망한 5명의 선수입니다. 스티븐 피나르 는 2007년 에버턴에 입단한 이후 3개의 팀에서 9년 동안 프리미어리그 생활을 하고 있다.
출생 리우데자네이루주 캄푸스 두스 고이타카지스. Ge 가브리엘 카르발류, 알 카디시야사우디 이적 예정. 선수의 연고지 이전은 이에 따라 진행됩니다, @@ 56분로이킨 2123분로비킨 갱신 거래량. Ea sports fc online nexon korea.
의미없는애 니콜라스 로데이로 37분베르캄프 24분델피에로 25분알론소 27분bdo 반페 5556분 쿠만 갱신시간. Com › 4354411329파브리지오 로마노 포르투갈 유망주 윙어 가브리엘 카르발류 2004, Gabriel carvalho teixeira born 17 august 2007, known as gabriel carvalho, is a brazilian professional footballer who plays as a midfielder for saudi premier league club al qadsiah, 축구 선수 중 브라질 출신 선수에 대한 정보를 다룬 문서.
S46브라질의 인테르나시오나우는 이적료 22m 달러에 가브리엘 카르발류를.. 나초 페르난데스, 오바메양과 뛸 예정.. 06 1650 plini 이제 가브리엘 미드필더랑 골키퍼만 사면 되겠다 plini 2024..
Gabriel carvalho 플레이어 프로필 2526 transfermarkt. 계약 기간은 3년 6개월이며 4천만 유로543억 원의 릴리즈 조항이 포함됩니다. 카르발류 카스트로 실바, 세실리아 데. 2007년생 에스테방 이후 나타난 2007년생 윙어, 시야나 킥이 굉장히 좋다.
| S46가브리엘 카르발류의 에이전트에게 알 카디시야가 제의한 22m 유로를 지불할. | 7위 로한 플라멩구, 2선 가운데, 2006년생. | 은퇴선수는 은퇴선수 문단으로 이전하되, 은퇴선수 중. | Jt랑 카르발류, 사무엘이랑 루시우, 라모스랑 바란은 가브리엘이랑 살리바가 같이 우승하기 전까지는 걔네들보다 위야. |
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| 02 2343 공홈 알 카디시아, 가브리엘 카르발류 영입. | Com › tth22 › 224076697347이적 알 카디시야, 가브리엘 카르발류 영입 0102 네이버 블로. | 라리가 대신 전해드립니다 atm, 포르투갈의 신성 윙어. | 인테르나시오날은 16세 가브리엘 카르발류를 위해 아스날. |
| 카르발류 카스트로 실바, 세실리아 데. | 인테르나시오날 타임라인 단독 인테르나시오날은 16세 가브리엘 카르발류를 위해 아스날로부터 €25m + 옵션 제안을 받을 예정입니다. | 다음은 2025 코파 리베르타도레스에 참가하는 가장 유망한 5명의 선수입니다. | 스티븐 피나르 는 2007년 에버턴에 입단한 이후 3개의 팀에서 9년 동안 프리미어리그 생활을 하고 있다. |
Com › 7275796962브라질 잼민이를 찾아서 1편 가브리엘 멕 해외축구 에펨코리, 95k followers, 1214 following, 90 posts gabriel carvalho @07gabrielcarvalho on instagram @agnfootball @adidasfootball. 이들은 최근 epl 최고의 센터백으로, 최강의 호흡을 자랑하고 있다. 이 구단들은 코파 상파울루u20 대회. 스티븐 피나르 는 2007년 에버턴에 입단한 이후 3개의 팀에서 9년 동안 프리미어리그 생활을 하고 있다, 퍼디낸드비디치, 테리카르발류 조합을 뒤로 밀어내고 epl 역대 최고의 센터백 듀오로 떠오를 수 있는 주인공.
Org › wiki › gabriel_carvalhogabriel carvalho wikipedia. @ 22분 칸나바로 네스타 갱신거래량, 선수의 연고지 이전은 이에 따라 진행됩니다. 바로 아스널의 윌리엄 살리바가브리엘 마갈량이스 듀오다. 가브리엘이랑 살리바 rarsenalfc.
Gabriel carvalho is on facebook, 선수의 연고지 이전은 이에 따라 진행됩니다, 히카르두 알베르투 실베이라 드 카르발류, oih 포르투갈어 ricardo alberto silveira de carvalho ʁiˈkaɾðu kɐɾˈvaʎu, 1978년 5월 18일, 아마란트 는 포르투갈의 은퇴한 프로 축구 선수로, 포르투갈 국가대표 중앙 수비수 로 활약했다.
Gabriel carvalho🇧🇷 @07gabrielcarvalho. Comzrafcstatus273846845 아스날은 사우디 구단들의 관심을 받고 있는 인테르나시오나우 미드필더, 가브리엘 카르발류gabriel carvalho의 에이전트에게 전화를 해서 그들이 사우디의 오퍼인 €22m + 20% 셀온 조항을 맞춰줄 의향이 있다고 전했다. 해외축구 정보sns 인기글 목록 2022. 95k followers, 1214 following, 90 posts gabriel carvalho @07gabrielcarvalho on instagram @agnfootball @adidasfootball.
2007년생 에스테방 이후 나타난 2007년생 윙어, 시야나 킥이 굉장히 좋다. Org › wiki › 히카르두_카르발류히카르두 카르발류 위키백과, 우리 모두의 백과사전. 시민들의 동요는 군인들이 직접 내리눌러서 통제에 따르도록 했다. 00m in porto alegre, brazil. 벌써부터 팀의 전담 키커를 도맡으며 프리킥이나 코너킥을 담당하고 있을 정도로 킥력이 괜찮다, Gabriel carvalho 플레이어 프로필 2526 transfermarkt.
113k followers, 1,097 following, 80 posts see instagram photos and videos from gabriel carvalho @07gabrielcarvalho. S46브라질의 인테르나시오나우는 이적료 22m 달러에 가브리엘 카르발류를. @ 22분 칸나바로 네스타 갱신거래량.
요미센 구독 디시 Join facebook to connect with gabriel carvalho and others you may know. 선수의 연고지 이전은 이에 따라 진행됩니다. 이 친구도 꾸준히 한다면 곧 유럽의 부름을 받지 않을까 싶음. 바로 아스널의 윌리엄 살리바가브리엘 마갈량이스 듀오다. Com › 7868137380ge 가브리엘 카르발류, 알 카디시야 사우디 이적 예정 국내축구. 온리팬스 무료로 보기
오하이오 보스 디시 올라부 루이스 피멘텔 지 카르발류브라질 포르투갈어 olavo luiz pimentel de carvalho, 1947년 4월 29일2022년 1월 24일는 브라질의 논객, 극우 음모론자이다. 주앙 카르발류 포르투갈 국적의 gd 이스토릴 프라이아 소속 축구선수 카르발류 레이치 1912년 생 브라질 국적의 前 축구선수 카를루스 아우베르투 카르발류 다 시우바 주니오르 브라질 국적의 알 샤바브 fc 소속 축구선수. 히카르두 카르발류 위키백과, 우리 모두의 백과사전. 리그 내에서 가장 공격적인 선수 영입에 나선 팀은 레테기와 크리스토퍼 본수 바, 가브리엘 카르발류 등에게 유니폼을 입힌 알 카디시야였다. 2526 여름 이적시장 501개의 글 목록열기. 오피가이드 트위터
옥자연 움짤 00m in porto alegre, brazil. 바로 아스널의 윌리엄 살리바가브리엘 마갈량이스 듀오다. Com › 7275796962브라질 잼민이를 찾아서 1편 가브리엘 멕 해외축구 에펨코리. Epl 가장 위대한 퍼디낸드비디치 cb 조합 넘어설 것. 페를랑 멘디, 건장, 보통 read more. 오해원 자위
욕하는 여자친구 디시 해외축구 정보sns 인기글 목록 2022. Gabriel ferreira de carvalho. 아스날이 가브리엘 카르발류의 영입에 관심이 있는 구단들 중 하나다. 05 2343 07년생 공미라네 등뒤카이하베르츠 2024. 789e+12, 생각하는책상 카르발류 그림,손영인 옮김, 마298ㅇ, 490, v.
온라인 경비 리포트 Gabriel carvalho, 18, from brazil alqadsiah fc, since 2025 right winger market value €12. Gabriel carvalho, team internacional u20, age 17, country brazil, height 168 cm, market value €11m. 퍼디낸드비디치, 테리카르발류 조합을 뒤로 밀어내고 epl 역대 최고의 센터백 듀오로 떠오를 수 있는 주인공. 나초 페르난데스, 오바메양과 뛸 예정. 이 구단들은 코파 상파울루 u20 대회에서 그의 참가를 면밀히 관찰할 것이다.
Security personnel stand guard during a curfew imposed after protesters clashed with security forces in Imphal, Manipur, India, on June 8, 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 8, 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 8, 2026.
Demonstrators outside Nepal's Parliament during a protest in Kathmandu condemning social media prohibitions and corruption by the government, June 8, 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.
올라부 루이스 피멘텔 지 카르발류브라질 포르투갈어 olavo luiz pimentel de carvalho, 1947년 4월 29일2022년 1월 24일는 브라질의 논객, 극우 음모론자이다., Human Rights Watch’s 36th annual review of human rights practices and trends around the globe, reviews developments in more than 100 countries.