As is tradition, for the 36th time, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has examined the human rights situation in more than 100 countries in a 529-page World Report 2026.

In his introductory essay, titled “Will Human Rights Survive a Trumpian World? Authoritarian Advances Threaten Rules-Based Order,” director Philippe Bolopion writes that stemming the authoritarian wave sweeping the world is the challenge of a generation. It represents a “blatant disregard for human rights.” With the human rights system under unprecedented pressure from the Trump administration and other global powers, Bolopion calls on human rights-respecting democracies and civil society to form a strategic alliance to defend fundamental freedoms.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration has abandoned the United States’ human rights obligations, drastically cut the country’s foreign aid budget, and halted the admission of most refugees. According to the report, the US has made a “clear shift toward authoritarianism” in the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term.

The report identifies immigration, health, the environment, labor, disability, gender equality, criminal justice, and freedom of expression as areas of human rights where the administration has taken “significant steps backward.”

“These Trump administration actions posed a significant threat to the global human rights framework. The administration’s open abandonment of a longstanding— but uneven —US commitment to make rule of law, democracy, and human rights central elements of foreign policy signaled to other governments that the United States cannot be relied on to stand up for international human rights law or use its influence to press for accountability for violations”.

HRW also alleges that........

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