Human Rights Watch (HRW) warned that 2025 may mark a “tipping point” for democratic institutions and global human rights in its annual report released Wednesday. The New York-based group said the reelection of US President Donald Trump has encouraged autocratic regimes and weakened protections for vulnerable groups and minorities worldwide.
HRW executive director Philippe Bolopion wrote that “the global human rights system is in peril,” arguing that pressure from the US under Trump, along with persistent undermining by China and Russia, is crushing the rules-based international order. The report says the Trump administration has, in its first year back in office, mounted “a broad assault on key pillars of US democracy,” used “racist tropes to cast entire populations as unwelcome,” and adopted policies and rhetoric aligned with white nationalist ideology.
While the report focuses much of its criticism on US domestic and foreign policy, it also details serious rights violations elsewhere. In Ukraine, HRW accuses Russian forces of indiscriminate bombing, coercing Ukrainians in occupied areas to serve in the Russian military, systematic torture of prisoners of war, and the abduction and deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia. The report says Trump has downplayed some of these abuses.
In the Middle East, HRW alleges that Israeli forces in Gaza committed “acts of genocide, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity” in response to the Hamas-led attack on Israel in October 2023. Bolopion warned that in “Trump’s new world disorder, might makes right and atrocities are not dealbreakers,” and urged governments that still value human rights to form a “strategic alliance” to push back.
The report highlights growing rights concerns in Germany, noting increases in anti-Muslim and antisemitic hate crimes. HRW criticized a January 2025 non-binding Bundestag motion, driven by Friedrich Merz’s Christian Democratic Union and backed by the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), to further restrict immigration—breaking a long-standing taboo among mainstream parties. It also accused authorities of undermining freedom of expression, assembly, and association, particularly through measures targeting Palestine solidarity protests and by broadly conflating criticism of Israel with antisemitism, a concern flagged by the Council of Europe’s human rights commissioner.
On women’s rights, HRW cites police statistics showing an 18% rise in domestic violence over five years, with women accounting for more than 70% of victims. Regarding LGBT rights, the report notes Bundestag President Julia Klöckner’s refusal to fly the rainbow flag over the Reichstag during Pride, ending a practice observed since 2022. In foreign policy, HRW says Germany has taken a leading role in the “coalition of the willing” supporting Ukraine and highlights Merz’s backing for using frozen Russian assets to arm Kyiv.
Looking ahead to 2026, Bolopion predicted that developments in the United States will have global repercussions. He described breaking the “authoritarian wave” and defending human rights as a generational challenge requiring a determined, strategic, and coordinated response from voters, civil society, multilateral institutions, and rights-respecting governments. HRW called for a new global alliance to uphold international human rights within a rules-based order, suggesting the European Union—including Germany—could lead a grouping alongside democracies such as Australia, Brazil, Canada, Japan, South Africa, South Korea, and the United Kingdom. Bolopion said that while these countries may individually be outmatched by the global influence of the US and China, together they could form a powerful political and economic bloc.
Edited by: Farah Bahgat
