As ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East steadily erode the long-standing rules-based global system, Australia faces a growing risk of exploitation through predatory behavior from major world superpowers, a landmark new human rights assessment has concluded.
Amnesty International’s 2025 *State of the World’s Human Rights* report, which evaluates human rights conditions across 144 nations, sounded a stark alarm that the entire globe is teetering on the edge of a dangerous new era defined by eroded international cooperation and weakening legal guardrails.
Kyinzom Dhongdue, Strategic Campaigns Manager for Amnesty International, argued that global leaders have adopted a dangerously passive stance when it comes to upholding international law. “Unless we stop appeasing these aggressors, the situation will only get worse,” she warned. “The vast majority of states have been either unwilling or incapable of calling out predatory actions carried out by the world’s most powerful actors.” For Australia, a nation that played a foundational role in building the modern international human rights framework, Dhongdue emphasized that defending the existing system, rejecting appeasement, and pushing back against mounting attacks on international law and global collaboration has never been more critical. She noted that the rules-based order has preserved global stability for 70 years, and its unraveling puts all nations at risk.
Dhongdue specifically called out four major powers—the United States, Israel, China and Russia—for normalizing predatory behavior and enabling a global rise in authoritarianism. “This report clearly identifies these irresponsible, powerful actors, and whether it is the Chinese government, the Israeli government, or the US government, all share responsibility for eroding the international system,” she said, adding that it is past time for Australia to coordinate collective action with other like-minded nations to reverse the trend.
Ahead of the report’s official release, Amnesty International Secretary General Agnes Callamard framed the current moment as the most challenging the world has faced in modern history. “Humanity is under attack from transnational anti-rights movements and predatory governments determined to assert their dominance through unlawful wars and brazen economic blackmail,” Callamard said. “To appease aggressors is to pour fuel on a fire that will burn us all and scorch the future for generations to come.”
Released in the wake of Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s recent diplomatic tour of Southeast Asia, the report also turned a critical eye on two of Australia’s regional allies. In Singapore, authorities have waged a relentless crackdown on freedom of expression and peaceful assembly, with repressive legislation targeting activists, journalists, and political opposition figures, the report found. Migrant workers in the country face systematic exploitation, and Singapore has continued to carry out executions for drug offenses, most recently putting to death Malaysian national Pannir Selvam despite widespread international condemnation.
In Malaysia, Albanese’s final stop on the tour, the report accuses authorities of using overly broad legislation to restrict freedom of speech and target government critics. Peaceful protests are regularly broken up, and activists and students face routine harassment, investigation, and arrest. While the report acknowledged small progress—including a slight drop in the death row population and growing public support for Indigenous rights recognition—it noted that LGBTQI people face targeted harassment and violence, and refugees and migrants are subject to indefinite detention.
The report also leveled sharp criticism at the United States, highlighting an unprecedented nationwide crackdown on migrants, rolling back of legal protections for LGBTQI people and reproductive rights, systemic use of lethal force that disproportionately targets Black Americans, and the continued arbitrary detention of prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay facility. It added that despite persistent mass gun violence across the country, the Trump administration terminated federal programs designed to address the crisis, and rolled back critical environmental and climate regulations.
A key section of the report is dedicated to Australia itself, focusing on the country’s recent world-first social media ban, a policy that a growing number of other nations—including France, Spain, and Malaysia—have already moved to emulate. While the assessment recognized that the ban reflects a genuine commitment to addressing harms posed by unregulated social media platforms, it argued that the restriction unnecessarily limits young people’s right to free expression and access to information, while failing to resolve the underlying systemic issues that create harm online.
The report also outlines persistent human rights failures within Australia: it documents worsening socioeconomic inequality for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, alongside disproportionately high incarceration rates and ongoing deaths in custody. It also calls out Australia’s offshore refugee processing regime, noting that as of the report’s release, 90 asylum seekers remain stuck in processing limbo on Nauru, with more than 30 held in neighboring Papua New Guinea. On freedom of expression, the report alleges Australian authorities have repeatedly conflated peaceful protest activity with violent crime, and that Australian universities have systematically curtailed academic and political freedoms for students and staff.
