In 2025, Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and Benjamin Netanyahu, to name a few, pursued a strategy of economic and political domination through destruction, repression, and large-scale global violence,” said Agnes Callamard, 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, illegally attacked Venezuela and Iran,” 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 Agnes Callamard, highlighting that the American and Russian presidents share a “deeply racist and patriarchal worldview.” As for the Israeli government, it “continued its genocide against the Palestinian population in Gaza, despite the October ceasefire agreement,” with no significant action from the international community, the report accuses.
Faced with “these brutes and looters,” almost all international leaders “showed contempt,” especially in Europe, laments Agnes Callamard. “States, international organizations, and civil society must reject the policy of appeasement at all costs and collectively resist these attacks,” the NGO urges.
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 agreements like the IPCC climate one. For Agnes Callamard, the current conflict in the Middle East illustrates a “shift towards contempt for the law” – from the “first illegal attacks led by the United States and Israel” to the “blind retaliations” of Iran. A conflict that occurred after Iranian authorities “massacred protestors in January 2026, in what was likely the deadliest repression of this kind in decades,” adds the NGO.
The report also details human rights abuses in countries like Myanmar, torn 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 taken in October.
Citizen and judicial initiatives
Rare glimmers of hope in this grim picture, according to Amnesty International: the establishment of a special tribunal for the war in Ukraine or the indictment of former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte for crimes against humanity at the ICC. The NGO also commends the actions of dockworkers in Spain, France, or Morocco to “disrupt the shipment of arms to Israel,” or the engagement of American citizens who opposed ICE immigration police operations – sometimes at the risk of their lives.
