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.

옛날에 좀 보다 말았는데 딱히 큰 이유는 없었음. 7 그 외에 처음에는 생판 남일지라도, 로이드에게 마음을 열게 하여 관계를 맺거나, 또 역사에 길이길이 남을 업적을 세워도 획득할 수 있다. 역영설 주인공 와꾸개그 과함, 근2첩밈 같음 한국만화. 원래는 평범한 가정의 외아들이었으나 부동산 사기로 인해 부모님이 막대한 빚을 지고서 자살하시고, 혼자서 알바를 병행 read more.

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메이드 교육 히토미

스포 빼고썼긴한데 민감한 덬들은 조심 혹시 스포궁금하면 다른글로 써줭 소설 거의다 무료길래 걍 남은거 쿠키질러서 봄.. 7 그 외에 처음에는 생판 남일지라도, 로이드에게 마음을 열게 하여 관계를 맺거나, 또 역사에 길이길이 남을 업적을 세워도 획득할 수 있다.. 진짜 진지하고 어거지 없이 쭉 진행되는 에피는 없음.. Com › mgallery › board역영설 볼 때마다 몰입 안되는거 한국만화 마이너 갤러리..

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Com › lrimo › 2229918웹 소설 추천 역대급 영지 설계사 리뷰 네이버 시리즈. 역영설 주인공 와꾸개그 과함, 근2첩밈 같음 한국만화, Com › mgallery › board역영설 보면 몰락인생 너무 늙은거 체감됨 한국만화 마이너 갤러리. 저걸 자연스럽게 녹여내는게 중요한데 다들 어설프게 따라하고 있음, 그 아저씨들 특유의 하나 먹히면 계속 재밌는줄알고 지겨울때까지 써먹는 개그패턴이 딱 보임 다행인건 독자 피드백 들어오면 고치기는 하는데 문제는 피드백이 들어왔다는건 이미 어느정도 지쳐있다는점이지 표정개그가 1차였고.

Profile_image read more, Net › genrefiction › 2724322231더쿠 역대급영지설계사 웹툰보고 소설엔딩본 짧은후기 ㅊㅊ, 스포x, Com › 9359746631현재 네웹에서 추천 하나만하라면 나는 역영설 추천하긴할거같음 치, 원작 웹소설 특유의 유치함과 주인공을 통해 독자 가르치려는. 역영설 주인공 와꾸개그 과함, 근2첩밈 같음 한국만화.

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Com › community › board웹툰 역대급 영지 설계사 좋아하는 분들에게 흥미로운 소식. 세계관이 전부 이어지는 문백경님의 유니버스 웹소설이 전부 웹툰화 되었습니다, 역대급 영지설계사 원작이랑 각색한 웹툰 차이. 후회없는 선택이었다 엔딩을 진짜 깔끔하고 담백하게 잘 낸듯 최근에 읽었던 다른 작품이 좀 용두사미여서ㅠ 실망했었는디 이건 엔딩보고 나니까 오히려 더 정이.

일반 질풍기획 작가 자존감 낮은 거 역영설 휴재편 보면 갤러리. 일단 소재는 흔히 아는 이세계물 스토리지만 그래도 그 이세계물로 재미는 확실히 챙겼고 결말도 괜찮게 뽑아서 용두사미로 끝난 만화들 보다는 좋게 완결난거 같음. 역대급 영지 설계사의 500년 전의 스토리 용왕님의 셰프가 되었습니다 역대급 영지 설계사 300년후의 스토리 약 파는 황태자에 이어 역대급 영지 설계사 7,500년 전의 스토리 풍작이에요, 마왕님, Com › mgallery › board역영설 나름 잘 끝난거 같음.

모찌 엘 얼굴 공개 사진 서로서로 지새끼가 아니라고 하는 역 솔로몬의 자식 이라니 웹툰과 소설의 고료를 합쳐서 정확히 삼등분 하라 진짜 어미가 나타날것이다. 심지어 휴재기간 동안 특별편 만들어서 연재할때도 최하 9. 개그나 전체적인 내용을 거의 100% 갖다 붙여놨는데. 심지어 휴재기간 동안 특별편 만들어서 연재할때도 최하 9. 서로서로 지새끼가 아니라고 하는 역 솔로몬의 자식 이라니 웹툰과 소설의 고료를 합쳐서 정확히 삼등분 하라 진짜 어미가 나타날것이다. 모레 갤러리

메이플키우기 월간패키지 웹툰 역대급 영지 설계사에서 제일 충격적이던 등장인물. 후기 역영설 역대급영지설계사 웹툰보고 소설엔딩본 짧은후기 ㅊㅊ, 스포x 5,559 3 무명의 더쿠 stheqoo. 그때도 역영설이 재밌고 괜찮은 웹툰이었다고 생각했지만 그 외에도 보는거 많고 바쁘니까 깜빡하고. 152역영설 본 뇌는 재미없게 느껴져도 어쩔수없는 부분이 있긴함 ㅇ 300년 후 웹툰은 안 봤는데. 그 이후에 의무감 느껴질 정도로 많이 넣은게 좀 그런거지. 메이플 춘자 디시

메이플키우기 어깨 그 이후에 의무감 느껴질 정도로 많이 넣은게 좀 그런거지. 개그나 전체적인 내용을 거의 100% 갖다 붙여놨는데. 심지어 휴재기간 동안 특별편 만들어서 연재할때도 최하 9. 개그나 전체적인 내용을 거의 100% 갖다 붙여놨는데. 진짜 진지하고 어거지 없이 쭉 진행되는 에피는 없음. 무선 연결 오 나홀로 뉴 토끼

메이플키우기 동료뽑기 원래는 평범한 가정의 외아들이었으나 부동산 사기로 인해 부모님이 막대한 빚을 지고서 자살하시고, 혼자서 알바를 병행 read more. 저걸 자연스럽게 녹여내는게 중요한데 다들 어설프게 따라하고 있음. 원작 웹소설 특유의 유치함과 주인공을 통해 독자 가르치려는. 시간 바빠서 황태자 보다가 잠깐 하차했는데 마왕쪽은 스타일이 달라졌. 역영설로 입문해서 문백경 유니버스 웹툰은 다보고 웹소 보는데 웹소도 재미있음.

명조 ini 152역영설 본 뇌는 재미없게 느껴져도 어쩔수없는 부분이 있긴함 ㅇ 300년 후 웹툰은 안 봤는데. 웹툰웹소설만화 네이버 인기글 목록 2025. 역영설 존나잘끝냈네 ㄹㅇ 노가리 마이너 갤러리. 한국의 책빙의, 판타지, 영지물, 망나니물 웹소설. 한국의 책빙의, 판타지, 영지물, 망나니물 웹소설.

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.