Newsletters
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned Monday that the “rule of force” is increasingly replacing the rule of law, as powerful states trample international norms and deploy new technologies, including artificial intelligence, in ways that undermine human rights.
“Human rights are under a full-scale attack around the world,” Guterres said at the opening of the U.N. Human Rights Council’s annual session in Geneva. “The rule of law is being outmuscled by the rule of force.”
He stressed that the erosion of rights is not covert or accidental but “happening in plain sight, and often led by those who hold the greatest power.”
While not naming specific governments, Guterres cited Russia’s war in Ukraine, saying more than 15,000 civilians have been killed during four years of fighting.
“It is more than past time to end the bloodshed,” he said.
He also highlighted what he called “blatant violations of human rights, human dignity and international law” in the occupied Palestinian territory, warning that the trajectory there is “stark, clear and purposeful.”
“The two-state solution is being stripped away in broad daylight,” Guterres said. “The international community cannot allow it to happen.”
In his final in-person address to the UN’s top human rights body, Guterres said the erosion of rights extends far beyond conflict zones.
“Around the world, human rights are being pushed back deliberately, strategically and sometimes proudly,” he said. “International law is treated as a mere inconvenience.”
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk echoed the warning, saying “domination and supremacy are making a comeback” as global competition for power intensifies.
“The use of force to resolve disputes between and within countries is becoming normalized,” Turk said, describing a geopolitical environment unseen in scale and intensity since the end of World War II.
Guterres warned that the human rights crisis is reinforcing other global fractures, pointing to widening i nequality, accelerating climate change and the misuse of artificial intelligence.
“Technology, especially artificial intelligence, is increasingly being used in ways that suppress rights, deepen inequality and expose marginalised people to new forms of discrimination,” he said.
He also warned that cuts to humanitarian and foreign aid, including sharp reductions by the United States since President Donald Trump’s return to office, are compounding global suffering, as other donor countries follow suit.
“When human rights fall, everything else tumbles,” Guterres said.
Both Guterres and Turk warned that the most vulnerable are bearing the brunt of the global shift.
“Democracies eroding… migrants harassed, arrested and expelled with total disregard for their human rights,” Guterres said, adding that refugees are increasingly scapegoated and minorities, indigenous peoples and religious communities targeted.
Turk accused unnamed leaders of believing they are “above the law and above the UN Charter,” using economic leverage and disinformation to silence critics and consolidate power.
Guterres, who steps down later this year after a decade as UN secretary-general, urged governments and institutions to reverse the trend.
“Do not let power write a new rulebook in which the vulnerable have no rights and the powerful have no limits,” he said.
Set as preferred source
Set as preferred source
1 min read
1 min read
