Rights watchdog Human Rights Watch (HRW) paints one of its bleakest pictures in years of the global human rights situation in its World Report 2026 released on Wednesday.
"The global human rights system is in peril," said Philippe Bolopion, executive director at HRW.
"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," he said.
"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."
Bolopion said that "Russia and China are less free today than 20 years ago. And so is the United States."
"Trump's second administration has been marked from the start by blatant disregard for human rights and egregious violations," the report said.
HRW cited, among other examples, "unnecessarily violent and abusive" raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and the arrest of foreign students over political statements.
The Trump administration is seeking to weaken international institutions created to enforce human rights standards and hold violators to account, the organization said.
Meanwhile, in Russia, as President Vladimir Putin continues the war against Ukraine, pressure on Kremlin critics is growing both inside Russia and abroad, according to HRW.
Political opponents are increasingly silenced or imprisoned on what the organization described as "bogus charges."
In November, Russia's Justice Ministry designated HRW an "undesirable" foreign organization, effectively banning its work in the country.
