UK-based human rights organisation, Amnesty International, has warned of a global human rights crisis, saying US President Donald Trump’s administration’s anti-rights campaign is “turbocharging” what is already present, gutting international human rights protections and endangering billions across the world. 

In its annual report on the State of Human Rights in 150 countries, the organisation said a multiplicity of assaults against human rights accountability, international law, and the United Nations (UN), have been some of the hallmarks of the first 100 days of Trump’s reign in 2025.

Trump on Tuesday celebrated the 100th day of his second term in office.

In the space of just more than three months, he has signed at least 142 executive orders. These include the termination of funding for global health and humanitarian programmes.

Amnesty International said growing inaction over violations of international humanitarian law during armed conflicts, repression of dissent, discrimination, economic and climate injustices and the misuse of technology to infringe on human rights, could be traced to the so-called “Trump Effect”. 

The organisation said this “Trump Efect” has compounded the damage done by other leaders throughout 2024, eating away at decades of painstaking work to build up and advance universal human rights and accelerating humanity’s plunge into a brutal new era characterised by intermingling authoritarian practices and corporate greed. 

The organisation stated that Trump’s trajectory is continuous with, and the product of, systemic, deliberate, and selective decisions taken over the past decade but reaching new depths in 2025.  

“One hundred days into his second term, President Trump has shown only utter contempt for universal human rights. His government has swiftly and deliberately targeted vital US and international institutions and initiatives that were designed to make ours a safer and fairer world. 

His all-out assault on the very concepts of multilateralism, asylum, racial and gender justice, global health and life-saving climate action is exacerbating the significant damage those principles and institutions have already sustained and is further emboldening other anti-rights leaders and movements to join his onslaught,” said Agnes Callamard, Amnesty International’s secretary general. 

Richard Wilson, board of trustees professor at the University of Connecticut School of Law, said the Trump administration has turned its back on human rights and the multilateral system, yet global challenges such as human rights violations, mass migration, and climate change remain.

“These problems demand global solutions. Even if the United States government will not participate for now, other nations must continue to strive for democracy and human rights. Put simply, democratic nations must fill the vacuum in global leadership. This may represent an opportunity to make the rules-based order more inclusive and representative.”

Political analyst and governance expert, Sandile Swana, said the second coming of Trump represents the highest degree of lawlessness in white Western Christian civilisation. He said Trump has made sure that he demonstrates that he does not respect international law. 

“As an example of that, the Americans have passed a law and Trump is following through. That anyone who assists the (International Crime Court) court in prosecuting the perpetrators of war crimes and crimes of humanity will be punished by the US, including lawyers and everyone who tries to arrest an American official,” he said. 

Political analyst Dr Gideon Chitanga said the US and other countries in the West have always claimed that they are protecting human rights, but they only granted the rights to their citizens

“But the prosecutions of imperial wars, particularly where the US has been involved, violated the human rights in every aspect. The countries that were in conflict with the US suffered serious violations. 

In the current content, you just have to think about the situation in Gaza where Israel is strongly supported by the US and is facing scrutiny under international law for violating human rights,” he said.

The report also documented how armed conflicts have devastated the lives of millions of people around the world, including in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, the Central African Republic (CAR), the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Ethiopia, Iraq, Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), Libya, Mali, Mozambique, Myanmar, Niger, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine and Yemen. 

“Parties to the conflicts – both government forces and armed groups have committed war crimes and other serious violations of international humanitarian law, such as direct attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure and indiscriminate attacks that have killed and injured civilians.”

It stated that many people, particularly those from marginalised communities, have been denied their rights to education, food, water, adequate housing, healthcare, and security.

The report also stated that Trump’s termination of foreign aid made conditions worse across the world, closing crucial programmes in states such as Yemen and Syria, and leaving children and survivors of conflict without access to food, shelter, or healthcare.

manyane.manyane@inl.co.za

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