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	We cannot allow a world without civil society by Gina Romero UN Special Rapporteur, Freedom of Assembly and of Association   Mar. 2026   A year has passed since a 90-day freeze on U.S. foreign assistance signaled the deepening of a structural dismantling of international solidarity. Today, the “existential threat” to the freedom of association I warned of in my report to last year’s UN General Assembly (A/80/219) is no longer a warning; it is a lived reality.   Thousands of civil society organizations (CSOs) worldwide have been reduced to their minimum or are completely vanishing, while others are forced into transformations that compromise their core missions. This is not only creating more victims of human rights violations but has also left prior victims alone.   For the freedom of association, the impact is devastating. The dismantling of USAID, the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (DRL), and other dedicated funds from other countries has cut the lifelines for NGOs that served as democratic watchdogs worldwide.   Therefore, this is not merely a budgetary shift but a coordinated attack on the infrastructure of dissent. In the U.S., for example, foundations and nonprofits are facing “three overlapping crises” (Maecenata Stiftung, Refugees International, other):   • Policy Threats: Executive Orders targeting DEI and redefining “charitable” status to strip tax exemptions.   • Organizational Targeting: Explicit vilification of networks like the Open Society Foundations and investigative letters targeting major funders like the Gates and Ford Foundations.   • Mass Closings: Organizations are laying off up to 95% of staff, leading to a “generational funding collapse” of the humanitarian system.   In the meantime, worldwide we also see ultra-conservative anti-rights groups and autocratic regimes rushing to fill the vacuum left by established aid agencies.   These groups are, among others, reshaping the global health landscape with actions that restrict reproductive rights and LGBTQI+ protections. In the Asia-Pacific region alone, 240 million young girls are facing a “coordinated global backlash” as programs focused on education and gender equality are the first to be cut (Women’s Agenda).   As I reported to the UN General Assembly last year, the right to association is an integral part of human nature. When states vilify aid as “criminal” or “corrupt,” they dismantle the lifelines that keep civic space alive. We must restore a sustainable aid architecture that serves human dignity and the planet rather than private profit or political control.   But the impact on communities and individuals is far too grave. The data emerging in early 2026 is devastating. Since the 2025 freeze, researchers estimate the dismantling of U.S. foreign aid alone has already caused 750,000 deaths, over 60% of whom are children—a rate of 88 preventable deaths every hour.   Projections indicate that without restoration, 22.6 million people could die from preventable causes by 2030 (The Lancet).   The “hammer” thrown at the aid system has undone decades of progress:   • Access to justice: Deeply affected by terminated grants funding for community violence intervention programs, legal assistance for crime victims from underserved communities, court-appointed advocates for children in cases of abuse or neglect, services for victims of hate crimes, shutting down the safety net for domestic violence survivors and closing of shelters and hotlines.   • Democracy and rule of law: Crisis in independent media and civil society reduces the critical voices that speak truth to the power and weakens checks and balances in democracies and hybrid regimes, while in authoritarian context the constraints of dissenting voices increases repression, especially against the most vulnerable groups (Global Democracy Coalition).   • Human rights: global and regional mechanisms of human rights protections have seen drastic cuts of funding, which jeopardize the human rights protections worldwide. The OHCHR received a 16% cut of its budget for 2026 and several Human Rights Council mandates are also being defunded, many tied to human rights violations investigations in authoritarian states (ISHR).   • Global Health: Access to PrEP and life-saving HIV drugs has been halved for 80% of community organizations. Cholera deaths in the DRC alone surged by 361% in 2025 after essential water projects were halted (Oxfam).   • Education: The abrupt cancellation of nearly 400 USAID-funded education programs in 58 countries risks leaving millions of children—predominantly girls and refugees—without access to quality learning.   • Food Security: In West and Central Africa, 55 million people are expected to endure crisis levels of hunger, or worse by the end of the first semester of 2026, including over 13 million children who are also expected to suffer from malnutrition during the year 2026 (WFP). In Afghanistan, monthly reach for emergency food aid plummeted from 5.6 million people to just 1 million (Refugees International).   Perhaps equally alarming is the collapse of data collection systems. As USAID programs disappeared, so did the reporting requirements that tracked disease, death, and human rights violations. We are entering a period where the true scale of suffering and needs may never be fully known.   Besides the cut of funding, the existential threat is also related to the reduction of possibilities of civil society organizations to collect new funding due to the increase of mis/disinformation about CSO work that leads to lack of trust in communities and therefore increases the shrinking civic space, already heavily affected by anti-NGO laws and persecution.   We cannot allow a world without civil society. It is a world without hope, where the most vulnerable are left alone to face the most pressing human crises and wars. The international community must move beyond “business as usual” to restore a sustainable and just aid architecture that empowers civic engagement rather than advancing its suppression.   http://www.ipsnews.net/2026/03/the-architecture-of-hope-under-siege-one-year-of-global-aid-dismantling/ http://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/10/global-aid-dismantling-poses-existential-threat-collective-action-and-human http://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/thematic-reports/a80219-report-special-rapporteur-rights-freedom-peaceful-assembly-and http://www.ids.ac.uk/news/smart-city-surveillance-tech-across-africa/ http://www.ids.ac.uk/news/africas-biometric-id-systems-blocking-millions-of-citizens-from-rights-and-services/
	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
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