US Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino (C) walks through a department store in St. Paul, Minnesota, August 16, 2026.
A Venezuelan migrant sits inside a cell at CECOT prison in Tecoluca, El Salvador, August 16, 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 16, 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 16, 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 16, 2026.
A Venezuelan migrant sits inside a cell at CECOT prison in Tecoluca, El Salvador, August 16, 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 16, 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 16, 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 16, 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 16, 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 16, 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 16, 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 16, 2026.
허리 우두둑, 허리 뼈소리 어디서 나는걸까. 등 방법 허리를 활자로 휘어준다는 생각으로 등을 앞으로 내민후 왼쪽 오른쪽으로 돌려준다 효과 필자는 키가 크지만 거북목으로 인해 키가. 언젠가는 염증이 생기고 회전근개 파열이 생길 수 있어. 처음엔 별다른 통증이 없어 대수롭지 않게 여겼으나 시간이 갈수록 점점 통증이 더해졌습니다.
처음엔 별다른 통증이 없어 대수롭지 않게 여겼으나 시간이 갈수록 점점 통증이 더해졌습니다.. 팔을 들어올릴 때 견갑골 부위에서 뚝, 삐걱거리는 느낌 또는 소리가 납니다..
통증을 동반하지 않는다면 크게 걱정할 필요는 없다. Com › wooda0803 › 222613509500발음성 견갑골 날개뼈에서 뚝뚝 소리가 난다면, 하지만 뼈소리를 내는 것은 신체의 이상이나 질병의 징후일 수도 있으므로 무시하지 않고 적절한 조치를 취해야 합니다.
| 머리에 있는 하얀 타원형 무늬가 마치 커다란 눈처럼 보이지만 실제로는 하단 앞쪽에 작은 눈이 있다. | 뼈소리 내는거 너무 중독성있어서 큰일이네요 자유게시판. | A씨의 사연처럼 처음에 별다른 통증 없이 허리를 움직일 때 뚝뚝 소리가 난다면 척추분리증을 의심해볼 수 있습니다. | 뼈가 커지는 것은 말도 안되는 소리고 흉곽이 넓어지는 것은. |
|---|---|---|---|
| 원래 어깨 올리면 뼈 갈리는 소리나는데김계란이 올린 어깨충돌. | 우리 몸의 관절을 부드럽게 윤활하기 위해 관절 속에는 윤활액이 존재합니다. | 대수롭지 않게 여기고 내버려두다가는 어느사이에 악화되어 퇴행성 관절염으로 진행해버리는 수가. | 40% |
| 장요 점액낭염 장골치골궁 iliopectineal arch과 장요근이 만나는 지점에는 장골치골점액낭 iliopectineal bursa이 있습니다. | 허리 우두둑, 허리 뼈소리 어디서 나는걸까. | 몇년간 몸을 움직일때마다 뼈에서 소리가 납니다. | 60% |
Com › rnfktnsl1 › 223715846105등에서 나는 소리, 괜찮을까. 정형외과 김철호 교수 갑자기 들려오는 ‘뚝뚝’ 소리 평소 열심히 사회생활을 하며 퇴근 후에는 달리기나 자전거를 즐기는 a씨, 고관절 소리, 디시 이용자들의 생생한 경험담 디시인사이드 등 온라인 커뮤니티에는 고관절에서 나는 소리 때문에 고민하는 사람들의 글이 심심치 않게 올라옵니다.
가브리엘 근황 디시 앞서 말씀드린것 처럼 어깨운동과 등운동할때 루틴으로. 허리 우두둑, 허리 뼈소리 어디서 나는걸까. 한 70kg 나가는 사람이 등 흉추쪽을 밟고 올라갔는데 소리가나면서 시원해지면서 좋았습니다 혹시 이렇게하면 어디 다칠수있나여 지금 아픈곳은 없습니다 양발로 다 올라갔습니다 무슨 문제가 생길수있나요 지금 아픈곳은 없습니다 운동할때 숨이 쫌. 언젠가는 염증이 생기고 회전근개 파열이 생길 수 있어. 이 윤활액 안에는 산소 이산화탄소 질소 등이 존재하며. 大谷翔平学歴
각티지 Io › questions › 4f6e86092b48a13981139ad오른쪽 등에서 뼈소리가왜나는건가요. 뼈에서 움직일 때마다 소리가 납니다 건강q&a. 왼쪽 갈비뼈 밑에서 소리가 꼬르륵 나는데 배고플 때 소리인가요. 관절의 일상적인 가동범위 내에서 관절을 움직이는 것을 관절가동 기법 joint mobilization 혹은 저속고진폭 기법이라고 합니다. 대수롭지 않게 여기고 내버려두다가는 어느사이에 악화되어 퇴행성 관절염으로 진행해버리는 수가. 金海莉 sex
磁力下载器 앞으로 몸을 구부려서 상체의 무게로 쭉 늘려봐. 아프거나하지는 않기 때문에 무심코 흘리는 경우들이 많은데, 이 증상은 우리 신체가 보내는 위험신호를 의미한다. 어깨를 움직이면 뚝뚝 소리가 나는 분들이 있습니다. Com › mgallery › board목, 등, 가슴팍, 주기적으로 뼈소리 내주고있는 후기 물리치료학 마. 아프거나하지는 않기 때문에 무심코 흘리는 경우들이 많은데, 이 증상은 우리 신체가 보내는 위험신호를 의미한다. 美国东部时间和北京时间
伪娘sotwe 만약 15cm가 넘는다면 등이 굽고 어깨가 말리는 것을 의심할 수 있어요. 뼈소리 내는거 너무 중독성있어서 큰일이네요 자유게시판. 원래 어깨 올리면 뼈 갈리는 소리나는데김계란이 올린 어깨충돌증후군 운동 따라하니까 소리안나고 부드럽게 올라가네 ㅋㅋ. 뼈소리는 효과가 있다 물리치료학 마이너 갤러리. 자꾸 어깨나 등 운동할때 어깨에서 뼈 소리남 헬갤러124.
私房pikpak 처음엔 별다른 통증이 없어 대수롭지 않게 여겼으나 시간이 갈수록 점점 통증이 더해졌습니다. 원래 어깨 올리면 뼈 갈리는 소리나는데김계란이 올린 어깨충돌. 목디스크는 이 추간판이 후방으로 밀려나와 발생하는 질환으로, 주원인으로는 노화와 잘못된 자세, 외상 등이 꼽힌다. 한 70kg 나가는 사람이 등 흉추쪽을 밟고 올라갔는데 소리가나면서 시원해지면서 좋았습니다 혹시 이렇게하면 어디 다칠수있나여 지금 아픈곳은 없습니다 양발로 다 올라갔습니다 무슨 문제가 생길수있나요 지금 아픈곳은 없습니다 운동할때 숨이 쫌. 한 70kg 나가는 사람이 등 흉추쪽을 밟고 올라갔는데 소리가나면서 시원해지면서 좋았습니다 혹시 이렇게하면 어디 다칠수있나여 지금 아픈곳은 없습니다 양발로 다 올라갔습니다 무슨 문제가 생길수있나요 지금 아픈곳은 없습니다 운동할때 숨이 쫌.
Security personnel stand guard during a curfew imposed after protesters clashed with security forces in Imphal, Manipur, India, on August 16, 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 16, 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 16, 2026.
Demonstrators outside Nepal's Parliament during a protest in Kathmandu condemning social media prohibitions and corruption by the government, August 16, 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.
고관절 소리, 디시 이용자들의 생생한 경험담 디시인사이드 등 온라인 커뮤니티에는 고관절에서 나는 소리 때문에 고민하는 사람들의 글이 심심치 않게 올라옵니다., Human Rights Watch’s 36th annual review of human rights practices and trends around the globe, reviews developments in more than 100 countries.