Human Rights Watch World Report 2026 by Philippe Bolopion Executive Director   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 re-election. 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, Turkiye, 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, Turkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, 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.   With the US undermining the global human rights system, who will rise in its defense? Despite rhetorical flourishes, many governments treat rights and the rule of law as a hindrance, rather than a benefit, to security and economic growth. The European Union, Canada, and Australia appear to hold back out of fear of antagonizing the US and China. Others are weakened by the way political parties displaying illiberal tendencies have skewed their domestic politics and discourse away from a rights-respecting approach.   In many parts of Western Europe, including the United Kingdom, Germany, and France, many voters gladly accept limits on the rights of “others,” whether immigrants, women, racial and ethnic minorities, LGBT people, or other marginalized communities. But as history shows, would-be autocrats never stop at “others.”   To fill this vacuum, there is an urgent need for a new global alliance to support international human rights within a rules-based order. Individually, these countries may be easily overwhelmed by the global influence of the US and China. But together, they could become a powerful political force and substantial economic bloc. The obvious participants in such a cross-regional alliance would be established democracies with significant economic and geopolitical clout, including, but not limited to, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Japan, South Africa, South Korea, and the UK, as well as the EU as an institution and many of its member states.   It’s critical to look beyond the usual suspects. The multilateral order was built brick by brick by states from all regions over decades. Countries such as Costa Rica, Ghana, Malaysia, Mexico, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Vanuatu have played important roles on specific human rights initiatives in key international forums.   Creative diplomats from smaller states such as Liechtenstein and The Gambia have been instrumental in advancing international justice. And it should be recognized that support for human rights has never come just from powerful democracies or countries with the strongest domestic rights records.   In theory, India, long considered the world’s largest democracy, could be a key member of this global alliance, considering its prior role in opposing apartheid in South Africa and defending minority rights in Tibet and Sri Lanka. Unfortunately, under a Narendra Modi administration that actively promotes Hindu majoritarianism, India can hardly hold itself out as a human rights champion. As the Indian authorities oppress political opponents, target minorities, especially Muslims and Christians, censor independent voices, ban books, and commit atrocities in counterinsurgency operations, it is unlikely, for now, to see value in bolstering a system that might one day be used against it.   However, India has also been targeted by the Trump administration for its purchase of Russian oil and regards China, with which it has clashed over their shared border, as a strategic competitor. The Indian government, which has historically chosen “nonaligned” status, might find that cleaning up its human rights record to join with other democracies could help protect it from the aggressive great powers.   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.   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.   http://www.hrw.org/world-report/2026 Visit the related web page
	Resisting the Rule of the Rich: Protecting Freedom from Billionaire Power by Oxfam International, agencies   Billionaire wealth jumped by over 16 per cent in 2025, three times faster than the past five-year average, to $18.3 trillion – its highest level in history, according to a new Oxfam report today as the World Economic Forum opens in Davos.   Billionaire wealth has increased by 81 per cent since 2020. This comes as one in four people don’t regularly have enough to eat and nearly half the world’s population live in poverty.   The report Resisting the Rule of the Rich: Protecting Freedom from Billionaire Power analyses how the super-rich are securing political power to shape the rules of our economies and societies for their own gain and to the detriment of the rights and freedoms of people around the world.   The surge in billionaire wealth coincides with the US Trump administration pursuing a pro-billionaire agenda. It has slashed taxes for the super-rich, undermined global efforts to tax large corporations, reversed attempts to address monopoly power and contributed to the growth of AI-related stocks that have provided a boon to super-rich investors world-wide.   His presidency has sent a clear warning sign to the rest of the world about the power of the ultra-rich. Rather than solely a US phenomenon Oxfam’s paper demonstrates that rising oligarchy is undermining societies worldwide. Oxfam’s report finds:   The collective wealth of billionaires last year surged by $2.5 trillion, almost equivalent to the total wealth held by the bottom half of humanity – 4.1 billion people.   The number of billionaires topped 3,000 last year for the first time, while the richest, Elon Musk, became the first ever to surpass half a trillion dollars.   Billionaires are 4,000 times more likely to hold political office than ordinary people.   The $2.5 trillion rise in billionaires’ wealth would be enough to eradicate extreme poverty 26 times over.   “The widening gap between the rich and the rest is at the same time creating a political deficit that is highly dangerous and unsustainable.” said Oxfam International Executive Director Amitabh Behar.   Oxfam estimates that billionaires are 4,000 times more likely to hold political office than ordinary citizens. A World Values Survey of 66 countries found that almost half of all people polled say that the rich often buy elections in their country.   “Governments are making wrong choices to pander to the elite and defend wealth while repressing people’s rights and anger at how so many of their lives are becoming unaffordable and unbearable,” Behar said.   Billions of people are being left facing avoidable hardships of poverty, hunger and death from preventable diseases because the system is rigged against them. Worldwide one in four people face food insecurity, having to regularly skip meals.   The rate of poverty reduction has stagnated with levels broadly where they were in 2019. Extreme poverty is rising again in Africa. Political decisions made by governments across the world last year to slash aid budgets have directly hit people living in poverty and could lead to more than 14 million additional deaths by 2030.   Civil liberties and political rights are being rolled back and suppressed; 2024 was the nineteenth successive year of decline with a quarter of all countries curtailing freedoms of expression. Last year there were more than 142 significant anti-government protests across 68 countries which authorities typically met with violence.   “Being economically poor creates hunger. Being politically poor creates anger.” said Behar.   The chances of democratic backsliding through, for example, the erosion of the rule of law or the undermining of elections is seven times more likely in highly unequal countries.   “No country can afford to be complacent. The pace that economic and political inequality can hasten the erosion of people’s rights and safety can be frighteningly fast,” he said.   Governments are allowing the super-rich to dominate media and social media companies. Billionaires own more than half the world’s largest media companies and all the main social media companies.   The report cites Jeff Bezos’ purchase of the Washington Post, Elon Musk with Twitter/X, Patrick Soon-Shiong with the Los Angeles Times and a billionaire consortium buying large shares of The Economist. In France, far-right billionaire Vincent Bolloré now controls CNews, rebranding it as the French equivalent of Fox News. In the UK, three-quarters of newspaper circulation is controlled by four super-rich families.   The report cites evidence that only 27 per cent of top editors globally are female and just 23 per cent belong to racialized groups respectively. This has seen their voices marginalized, while minorities like immigrants and people of colour are often stigmatized and scapegoated and critics silenced.   Authorities in Kenya have used X to track, punish and even abduct and torture government critics. A study by the University of California meanwhile found that in the months following Elon Musk’s acquisition of X the rates of hate speech increased by about 50 per cent.   “Our societies feel more toxic today because they demonstrably are, but not always for the reasons we’re being told. The outsized influence that the super-rich have over our politicians, economies and media has deepened inequality and led us far off track on tackling poverty. Governments should be listening to the needs of the people on things like quality healthcare, action on climate change and tax fairness,” Behar said.   Oxfam is calling on governments to prioritise:   Realistic and time-bound National Inequality Reduction Plans, with well-established benchmarks and regular monitoring of progress.   Effectively taxing the super-rich to reduce their power, including with broad-base taxes on income and wealth at high enough rates to reduce massive levels of inequality.   Stronger firewalls between wealth and politics including by tougher regulations against lobbying and campaign financing by the rich, ensuring more media independence, and banning hate speech.   Accountability for the political empowerment of ordinary citizens, including stronger protection for people’s freedoms of association, assembly and expression and for civil society organisations and trade unions.   http://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/billionaire-wealth-jumps-three-times-faster-2025-highest-peak-ever http://www.oxfam.org/en/research/resisting-rule-rich http://www.theguardian.com/global/2026/jan/19/davos-rich-global-threat-economic-inequality-wealth http://www.equals.ink/p/billionaire-wealth-reaches-historic http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/inequalities/2026/01/27/democracy-at-risk-resisting-the-rule-of-the-richest/ http://www.equals.ink/p/agnes-callamard-on-rising-inequality http://www.equals.ink/p/the-great-global-wealth-transfer-thomas-piketty-on-inequality http://www.equals.ink/p/who-pays-when-countries-fall-into http://americansfortaxfairness.org/new-report-u-s-billionaires-got-1-5-trillion-richer-trumps-first-year/ http://americansfortaxfairness.org/groups-back-billionaires-income-tax/ Visit the related web page
	View more stories