In 2025, Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and Benjamin Netanyahu, among others, pursued a strategy of economic and political domination through destruction, repression, and large-scale global violence,” said Agnès Callamard, the secretary-general of Amnesty International, during a presentation of the report in London.
A challenge to international frameworks The United States engaged in extrajudicial killings beyond its borders, attacked Venezuela and Iran “entirely illegally,” and threatened Greenland, the report alleges. Meanwhile, the Trump administration “did everything it could to undermine years, decades of efforts” to defend women’s rights, according to Agnès Callamard, who noted that the American and Russian presidents share a “profoundly racist and patriarchal worldview.” Regarding the Israeli government, it “continued its genocide against the Palestinian population in Gaza, despite the October ceasefire agreement,” the report accuses.
Faced with “these brutes and plunderers,” almost all international leaders “showed cowardice,” especially in Europe, lamented Agnès Callamard. “States, international organizations, and civil society must reject the policy of appeasement at all costs and collectively resist these attacks,” the NGO urged.
Pressure on institutions According to Amnesty International, international institutions have faced the “worst” attacks since 1948, with American sanctions against certain judges and prosecutors of the International Criminal Court (ICC) or the U.S. withdrawal from dozens of conventions such as the IPCC climate pact. For Agnès Callamard, the current conflict in the Middle East illustrates the “slide towards contempt for the law” – from the “first illegal attacks led by the United States and Israel” to the “blind reprisals” of Iran. The conflict arose after Iranian authorities “massacred protesters in January 2026, in what was likely the deadliest repression of its kind in decades,” the NGO added.
The report also details human rights abuses in countries like Myanmar, torn apart by civil war since 2021, where the army “used motorized paragliders to drop explosive munitions on villages, killing dozens of civilians.” It also mentions Sudan, where the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) committed “massacres of civilians and sexual violence” during the siege of El-Fasher, which lasted 18 months before the city was captured in October.
Citizen and judicial initiatives Rare glimmers of hope in this grim picture, according to Amnesty International, include the establishment of a special tribunal for the war in Ukraine and the indictment of former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte for crimes against humanity by the ICC. The NGO also commends the actions of dockworkers in Spain, France, and Morocco to “disrupt the shipment of weapons to Israel,” or the commitment of American citizens who resisted ICE immigration operations – sometimes at the risk of their lives.
