The international human rights system faces a deepening crisis driven by rising authoritarianism, expanding armed conflicts, weak accountability for serious violations, and growing discrimination against migrants, minorities, women, and LGBTQI communities.

Economic and climate inequalities, debt pressures, declining development assistance, and corporate practices further constrain states’ capacity to protect rights and leave the most vulnerable populations disproportionately exposed.

Recommended responses include strengthening accountability mechanisms (regional, investigative, and universal-jurisdiction tools), integrating climate adaptation and displacement protection into the human rights agenda, and reforming debt, development finance, trade, and corporate due-diligence standards.

Human rights are in crisis, not only because of individual violations and government failures. More seriously, the crisis is spreading to the institutions, rules, and commitments which, for decades, have formed the basis of the international system for human rights. A growing number of countries are becoming more authoritarian. There are more armed conflicts, countries are failing to hold each other accountable for human rights abuses, and there are greater economic and climate-related inequalities between countries. For the first time in decades, human rights are no longer being protected based on universal principles but are becoming dependent on the vagaries of geopolitics.

However, the greatest challenge to the global human rights system today is the resurgence of authoritarianism around the world. In recent years, an increasing number of governments have started to use more and more force to repress citizens and to destroy independent organizations and to stifle any form of dissent. In some cases, these governments are supported by governments and corporations from other parts of the world. In other cases, however, there is a strong nationalist current that wants to achieve development goals without the intervention of external actors. In all cases, however, there is an increasing repression of human rights and an effort to stop citizens from expressing any form of discontent with regard to the actions of........

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