Amnesty International recently announced the launch of its annual report on the situation of human rights across the globe. 

The international non-governmental organisation, which focuses on human rights around the world and has an office in Luxembourg, recently undertook an assessment of the situation in 150 countries for its report entitled “The State of the World's Human Rights”. 

According to Amnesty International, the report identified a number of key points:

- the rise of authoritarian practices and violent suppression of dissent worldwide;

- global inaction on inequality, climate change and technological transformations which endanger future generations;

- that authoritarian drift and the erosion of international law are not inevitable, as long as individuals continue to resist attacks on human rights and states implement and persist in enforcing international justice;

- that the first 100 days of Donald Trump's presidency have exacerbated global regressions and deepened trends observed in 2024.

Amnesty International noted that the “Trump effect" has “damaged the progress painstakingly achieved over several decades to build and promote universal fundamental rights, accelerating humanity's entry into a new brutal era, characterised by authoritarian practices intertwined with corporate greed.”

Secretary General of Amnesty International, Agnès Callamard, added: “Year after year, we warn about the dangers of human rights regression. But the events of the past twelve months - starting with Israel's genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, which we witness live but no one stops - have shown how the world can become a hell for so many when the greatest powers abandon international law and disregard multilateral institutions.”She added: “At this pivotal moment in history, as authoritarian laws and practices multiply globally to serve the interests of a few, governments and civil society must urgently work to bring humanity back to safer ground.”

The report also documented widespread and violent repression of dissent, the escalation of armed conflicts, insufficient efforts to address climate change and a growing offensive in many countries against the rights of migrants, refugees, women, girls and LGBTI individuals.  Amnesty International noted that “without a global reversal, each of these regressions will worsen in 2025”.

The report also detailed how the proliferation of authoritarian laws, policies and practices targeting freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly have played a central role in impacting human rights through the dismantling or suspension of NGOs and political parties, the imprisonment of opponents and the prosecution of human rights defenders, climate activists and other dissenters. 

Regarding the importance of protecting the press, David Pereira, Executive Director of Amnesty International Luxembourg, said: "Journalists' work is essential. Attacking them is an attack on our societies' right to information.”

In relation to conflicts in Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan and Myanmar, Agnès Callamard said: "For a long time, Amnesty International has warned against the double standards that undermine the rules-based international order. The impact of this relentless decline reached new heights in 2024, from Gaza to the Democratic Republic of Congo.” She added: "The cost of these failures is enormous.”

On the subject of climate change, Amnesty International’s report highlighted that 2024 was “the hottest year ever recorded and the first during which the global average temperature exceeded pre-industrial levels by more than 1.5C” and that “extreme poverty and inequalities within and between states continued to grow due to widespread inflation, insufficient corporate regulation, endemic tax evasion and rising national debts. Meanwhile, the number of billionaires and their wealth increased”.

David Pereira emphasised that: “Due to the inability to address various crises, governments have abandoned, even condemned, future generations."