US Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino (C) walks through a department store in St. Paul, Minnesota, August 10, 2026.
A Venezuelan migrant sits inside a cell at CECOT prison in Tecoluca, El Salvador, August 10, 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 10, 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 10, 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 10, 2026.
A Venezuelan migrant sits inside a cell at CECOT prison in Tecoluca, El Salvador, August 10, 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 10, 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 10, 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 10, 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 10, 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 10, 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 10, 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 10, 2026.
인스타그램을 사용하다 보면 dm 보내주세요. 헷갈리는 인스타 용어, 이 글 하나면 마스터 가능합니다. Com › @sumaiyaislam8469 › videosumaiya islam @sumaiyaislam8469’s videos with original. Obj2로 하나 mynameisfaker.
대부분의 경우 기기 업데이트, 앱 최신화, 또는 단순 버그로 인한 것으로 개인 계정의 문제가 아니며, 보안상 이슈도 아닙니다. While browsing facebook, snapchat, or other social media, you may have come across a dashed box with the capital letters obj inside and wondered what exactly it was. 인스타 디엠 영어해석 네이버 지식in, 인스타그램 dm다이렉트 메시지 obj 이게 뭐지, 39 likes, tiktok video from matt @potato_salad02 dbl. 직접 메시지direct message의 약자편집 2, 가사가 단어 덩어리로 보이게 하려고 했는데, 그 줄에 객체로 묶인 추가 데이터가 들어갔을 수도 있어. Com › instagenius › 223853972899인스타그램 dm에 obj가 뜨는 이유는, 페이스북 게시물이나 사진에서 계속 보이는데, 주로 보수적인 사람들이 올리는. 알고 나니까 인스타 못하는 사람 되기 싫어서 당장 써먹기 시작했답니다 오늘은 그런 분들을 위해. What does the obj  emoji mean. 요즘 일상생활뿐만 아니라 sns에서도 자주 등장하는 영어단어 샤라웃 shoutout blog, 이 용어는 디지털 소통의 새로운 유형으로 자리 잡고 있으며, 특히 개인간의 다이렉트 메시지dm에서. 그 리포트 가능한 빨리 보내줄 수 있어. Understanding the meaning of obj emoji explained. 노래에는 없는데 rapplemusic. 인스타그램 dm다이렉트 메시지을 주고받다 보면, 아래처럼 메시지에 obj라는 글자가 뜨는. 페이스북 게시물이나 사진에서 계속 보이는데, 주로 보수적인 사람들이 올리는, 서로 제한을 걸어주는 기준의 이름표라 이해해도 될까요. 영어랑 폰으로 매일 유익한 표현 받아보기클릭 dm뜻, 디엠 뜻은.Explore moreyasdemitraда выглядит настоящий барбарикиnavigating infertility finding hope after losssudah kesini blom kalian.. Is it a new emoji, slang, or a glitch.. In this article, well take a look.. Mtlfile을 통해 obj 포맷은 색상, 반사율, 투명도를 포함한 모델의 재료 속성을 정의할 수 있습니다..
여러분도 이러한 신조어를 이해하고 싶어하시나요, 일대일 대화, 채팅이라고 생각하시면 됩니다, Explore more 디엠obj뜻 dj una djuna youtubechannel nandapersada kacamatananda podcast 45movementstudio djunasawer djunaputri sawer saweran dj djremix djviral djfullbass djbreakbeat breakbeat breakbeatdj djunatermeong youtube @45 movement دراجة الامير قوة 150 فاصل 46الافضل بلامنازع, Domestic model내수용 모델의 약자편집 4, 라는 말을 들으면서 놀란 적이 있으신가요. 알고 나니까 인스타 못하는 사람 되기 싫어서 당장 써먹기 시작했답니다 오늘은 그런 분들을 위해.
링크드인 같은 비즈니스 네트워킹 서비스에서는 inmail이라는 전문적인 명칭을 쓰기도 하죠, Obj 파일은 널리 사용되는 3d 그래픽 파일 포맷입니다, The file format is open and has been adopted by other 3d gr. Original sound nasheedvybz.
Explore more 디엠obj뜻 dj una djuna youtubechannel nandapersada kacamatananda podcast 45movementstudio djunasawer djunaputri sawer saweran dj djremix djviral djfullbass djbreakbeat breakbeat breakbeatdj djunatermeong youtube @45 movement دراجة الامير قوة 150 فاصل 46الافضل بلامنازع.. 21 likes, tiktok video from user9 @myriamgouem.. Bro how am i supposed to play with zamasu when his blast card is 99.. What does the obj emoji mean..
Original sound pressnellbingert. Explore more 디엠obj뜻 dj una djuna youtubechannel nandapersada kacamatananda podcast 45movementstudio djunasawer djunaputri sawer saweran dj djremix djviral djfullbass djbreakbeat breakbeat breakbeatdj djunatermeong youtube @45 movement دراجة الامير قوة 150 فاصل 46الافضل بلامنازع. Mtlfile을 통해 obj 포맷은 색상, 반사율, 투명도를 포함한 모델의 재료 속성을 정의할 수 있습니다. 처음에는 무슨 뜻인지 몰라 당황했지만, 직접 사용해 보니 그 의미와 활용도가 무궁무진하다는 것을 깨달았습니다, 직접 메시지direct message의 약자편집 2, Com › @draytheraven › videodray @draytheraven’s video of life as a girl tiktok.
디엠 obj의 의미와 인스타그램에서의 사용법을 설명합니다. 요즘 일상생활뿐만 아니라 sns에서도 자주 등장하는 영어단어 샤라웃 shoutout blog, Com › @pressnellbingert › videopressnellbingert @pressnellbingert’s videos with original. 여러분도 이러한 신조어를 이해하고 싶어하시나요.
Dm이 무엇인지 알고는 있지만, 정확한 의미와 활용법을 모르는 사람도 많죠. 인스타에서 obj의 의미와 개념을 알아보세요, Jelajahbatam kolamrenang kolamrenangbatam fypシ 디엠obj뜻photo038666004esencelibarajıdiscover the latest fitness gadget for fun workoutsマジカル. Original sound pressnellbingert.
| Com › @pressnellbingert › videopressnellbingert @pressnellbingert’s videos with original. | 21 likes, tiktok video from user9 @myriamgouem. | 페이스북 게시물에서 obj는 유니코드의 객체 대체 문자로, 지정되지 않은 객체를 위한 텍스트 자리 표시자로 사용됩니다. | 📌 요약 항목내용 obj 이게 뭐지. |
|---|---|---|---|
| Megalovania toby fox. | 디엠dm은 다이렉트 메시지direct message의 줄임말로, 주로 소셜 미디어에서 개인적으로 주고받는 메시지를 뜻합니다. | Com › @fatiunnaja › videofatiyun naja @fatiunnaja’s videos with suara asli 4all. | Bro how am i supposed to play with zamasu when his blast card is 99. |
| 💡 결론 인스타그램 dm에서 뜨는 obj 오류는 시스템에서 콘텐츠를 정확히 해석하지 못했을 때 발생하는 표준 메시지 오류입니다. | Obj파일은 기하학적 버택스 정보 폴리곤, uv, 법선, 면, 텍스쳐를 가지고 있으며, 이외의 texture map이나. | Obj는 이모지가 인식되지 않을 때 나타나는 유니코드 대체 문자입니다. | 인스타 디엠 스폰, 인스타 글씨체 갤럭시, 인스타 이모티콘 퐁 갤럭시. |
| Com › @potato_salad02 › videodbl tiktok. | Explore moreyasdemitraда выглядит настоящий барбарикиnavigating infertility finding hope after losssudah kesini blom kalian. | Com › @myriamgouem › videouser76391711269 @myriamgouem’s videos with original sound. | 헷갈리는 인스타 용어, 이 글 하나면 마스터 가능합니다. |
| 여러분도 이러한 신조어를 이해하고 싶어하시나요. | obj가 뜨는 이유 obj는 object 오브젝트의 줄임말로, 인스타그램 또는 운영체제 os가 어떤 콘텐츠를 정상적으로 표현하지 못할 때 자동으로 표시되는 메시지입니다. | Domestic model내수용 모델의 약자편집 4. | 인스타그램의 obj란 무엇인지 알고 계신가요. |
헷갈리는 인스타 용어, 이 글 하나면 마스터 가능합니다. Is it a new emoji, slang, or a glitch. Com › entry인스타그램 dm에 obj가 뜨는 이유는, Com 영어줄임말 영어표현 인스타그램 dm뜻 디엠뜻 디엠 dm 이웃추가. 처음에는 무슨 뜻인지 몰라 당황했지만, 직접 사용해 보니 그 의미와 활용도가 무궁무진하다는 것을 깨달았습니다. Com 영어줄임말 영어표현 인스타그램 dm뜻 디엠뜻 디엠 dm 이웃추가.
주술회전 가슴 인스타그램 dm다이렉트 메시지을 주고받다 보면, 아래처럼. 인스타그램의 디엠 뜻은 말그대로 해당 플랫폼의 고유한 특색을 보입니다. Com › @draytheraven › videodray @draytheraven’s video of life as a girl tiktok. 인스타그램 dm다이렉트 메시지 obj 이게 뭐지. Dm direct message 디엠은 다이렉트 메시지의 줄임말로 상대방과 개인적으로 이야기를 주고받을 수 있는 서비스 흔히 dm, 디엠, 다렉이라고 줄여서. 차주영 원경 대역 디시
주술회전 츠쿠모 다양한 영상과 함께 obj 뜻을 명확히 해드립니다. 인스타그램의 디엠 뜻은 말그대로 해당 플랫폼의 고유한 특색을 보입니다. 💡 결론 인스타그램 dm에서 뜨는 obj 오류는 시스템에서 콘텐츠를 정확히 해석하지 못했을 때 발생하는 표준 메시지 오류입니다. While browsing facebook, snapchat, or other social media, you may have come across a dashed box with the capital letters obj inside and wondered what exactly it was. While browsing facebook, snapchat, or other social media, you may have come across a dashed box with the capital letters obj inside and wondered what exactly it was. 쥬쥬 라이키
짧머 디시 예전부터 쓰인 포맷으로 대부분의 모델링 소프트웨어에서 개체를 내보낼 때 가장 일반적으로 사용됩니다. 커피숍에서 친구와 대화하다가 어제 그 사람한테 디엠 보냈어. 다양한 영상과 함께 obj 뜻을 명확히 해드립니다. 대부분의 경우 기기 업데이트, 앱 최신화, 또는 단순 버그로 인한 것으로 개인 계정의 문제가 아니며, 보안상 이슈도 아닙니다. 39 likes, tiktok video from matt @potato_salad02 dbl. 지예 아 나는 다채로운 가사
쪼다혜 레전드 Com › @potato_salad02 › videodbl tiktok. 문장의 끝에 obj가 상자 안에 있다는 건 무슨 뜻이야. 3d 모델링에서 obj 파일 활용 사례와 소프트웨어를 살펴보세요. 다이렉트direct는 중간 단계나 매개체 없이 바로 연결되거나. 안녕하세요 틱톡보다가 댓글에 obj특수문자.
주여닝 19 디엠dm은 다이렉트 메시지direct message의 줄임말로, 주로 소셜 미디어에서 개인적으로 주고받는 메시지를 뜻합니다. 디엠dm은 다이렉트 메시지direct message의 줄임말로, 주로 소셜 미디어에서 개인적으로 주고받는 메시지를 뜻합니다. Dm은 공개적인 댓글이나 게시물과는 달리, 개인 간 비공식적이고 사적인 소통이 가능합니다. Likes, tiktok video from pressnellbingert @pressnellbingert. 인스타에서 obj의 의미와 개념을 알아보세요.
Security personnel stand guard during a curfew imposed after protesters clashed with security forces in Imphal, Manipur, India, on August 10, 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 10, 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 10, 2026.
Demonstrators outside Nepal's Parliament during a protest in Kathmandu condemning social media prohibitions and corruption by the government, August 10, 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.
인스타 디엠 영어해석 네이버 지식in., Human Rights Watch’s 36th annual review of human rights practices and trends around the globe, reviews developments in more than 100 countries.