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What an observer says about a situation often reveals more about themselves than the object of their commentary.
Such is the case with the latest annual global human rights report issued by the State Department earlier this month, which reveals far more about the US’s changing priorities than anything about the actual state of human rights and democracy in the world.
Previous iterations of this report, mandated by Congress since 1978, aimed to provide an objective assessment of a country’s performance against the benchmark of standards in the main international human rights conventions.
This year’s report is a vastly scaled-back affair, with entire categories of abuse watered down or erased, and countries’ reports cut by dozens of pages in many cases.
It is also nakedly partisan in its assessments, giving countries perceived to enjoy friendly relations with the Trump administration far softer treatment than those with which it is perceived to be in conflict.
According to the Alliance for Diplomacy and Justice, a coalition of former State Department officials opposed to the Trump administration’s foreign assistance cuts and many of its other policies, “This is not an oversight; it is deliberate erasure.”
Friends With Benefits
Amongst the countries coming in for softer treatment are El Salvador – whose authorities have cooperated closely with the Trump administration in receiving deported migrants from the US into the notoriously abusive CECOT prison, and Hungary, whose strongman leader, Viktor Orban, has formed a strong bond with Trump, and whose autocratic rule is seen as a role model for right wing conservatives in America.
For example, the 2023 report noted El Salvador’s overcrowded prisons and reports of “arbitrary killings; enforced disappearance; torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment by security forces; harsh and life-threatening prison conditions; arbitrary arrest or detention,” and more.
The 2024 report found “there were no credible reports of significant human rights abuses”, celebrated that “reports of gang violence remained at historic low” thanks to mass arrests, and even commended the government for its “credible steps” to identify and punish officials guilty of abuses.
By contrast, elsewhere in Latin America, Brazil, whose leader, Lula da Silva, has repeatedly clashed with Trump over the treatment of former President and Trump ally Jair Bolsonaro, comes in for scathing criticism.
The 2024 report asserts that the human rights situation there has declined, with the government allegedly undermining freedom of speech and democratic debate, disproportionately targeting supporters of Bolsonaro, and failing to tackle reported abuses credibly.
It is no coincidence that Brazil-US relations are at their lowest level in decades, in the wake of Trump’s decision to levy 50% tariffs on Brazil and impose sanctions on its main judges as punishment for Brazil’s prosecution of Bolsonaro for attempting to overturn the result of the 2022 election. Ironically, the effect has been to boost popular support for Lula and accelerate Brazil’s strategic pivot towards China.
Likewise, this year’s executive summary for Hungary notes, “there were no significant changes” and “no credible reports of significant human rights abuses”. Last year’s report included extensive mention of “serious government corruption” and restrictions on media freedom.
While Hungary gets off lightly, the 2024 report goes in harder on several of Washington’s more traditional European allies, such as France, Germany and the UK, countries accused by Vice President JD Vance of censorship and suppression of free speech.
For example, the section on the United Kingdom declares the “human rights situation worsened,” citing “credible reports of serious restrictions on freedom of expression, including enforcement of or threat of criminal or civil laws in order to limit expression; and crimes, violence, or threats of violence motivated by antisemitism”. It adds that the government only “sometimes” took credible steps to address human rights abuses, with prosecution and punishment “inconsistent”.
The section on Israel, the West Bank and Gaza is vastly changed from last year. Where the 2023 report was 76 pages long, the 2024 version is eight. It has plenty to say about Hamas’s detention and ill-treatment of Israeli hostages, but expresses no concern about Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza, including allegations of war crimes, or about the dire humanitarian situation there. It repeats the United States’ recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and makes no reference to illegal settlements or settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.
In line with Trump’s tendency to treat Russia and Ukraine equally, this year’s report has almost as much to say about alleged human rights violations committed by Ukrainian authorities, as about Russian atrocities committed in Ukraine.
Moreover, while the 2023 report was careful to acknowledge that Ukraine’s alleged abuses were “not comparable to the scope of Russia’s abuses”, this qualification was not included in the 2024 version.
Rights Are Not Equal Under Trump
As for different categories of human rights, one of the most controversial changes is the elimination of the standalone section on women’s rights in each country report, which us