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Human Rights Watch (HRW) urged Magyar’s incoming government to take immediate steps to restore democratic norms in Hungary. The organization called for the swift dissolution of the Sovereignty Protection Office, a body established in 2023 with broad powers to investigate journalists, civil organizations, and academics that receive foreign funding. HRW also pressed for an end to emergency decree powers that have allowed Orbán’s executive to bypass the parliamentary process since 2020.

HRW urged the incoming government to drop criminal charges against Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony, who is being prosecuted for holding the city’s Pride March last June in defiance of a ban imposed by Orbán’s government, and against Géza Buzás-Hábel, organizer of the Pride march in Pécs.

Orbán’s measures against dissent of course mirror those of Vladimir Putin, and indeed his defeat diminishes an emerging pro-Russian bloc on the continent, also including Slovakia and (outside the EU) Serbia and Belarus. The fall of Orbán is expected to free up a €17 billion loan to Ukraine that his government had effecitvely blocked.

However, Péter Magyar is a creature of the center-right, and a former Orbán ally. His Respect & Freedom (Tisza) party broke from Fidesz in 2020, in response to Orbán’s growing authoritarianism. His proclivities are fundamentally conservative, and he may not mean a full de-Orbánification. In a bad sign, Magyar on April 15 held what the Israeli Foreign Ministry called a “warm introductory phone call” with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, pointing to a continuity in ties. Orbán’s Hungary and Donald Trump’s United States are the only two countries Netanyahu has been able to safely visit since the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for his arrest to face war crimes charges in November 2024.

Nonetheless, among those around the world taking courage in the fall of Orbán are the Israeli protesters who have mounted a campaign of militant demonstrations against Netanyahu and his wars. (Jurist, JP, PRI, EuroNews)

Sidelined by the world media spotlight, a more stark struggle with stakes just as high for the survival of democratic norms is emerging in the South American nation of Peru. As Hungarians voted, so did Peruvians, in a crowded field of 35 candidates following years of political chaos that have seen 10 presidents in as many years. Leading the field was Keiko Fujimori, perennial candidate of the hard-right Fuerza Popular.

Keiko is the daughter of ex-dictator Alberto Fujimori, who shamefully died a free man in December 2024, having been released from prison after 17 years following a pardon for his convictions for corruption and human rights abuses. The younger Fujimori remained an unabashed supporter of the elder to the very end, and her potential election promises a reversal of the process of de-Fujimorification that Peru has undergone since the fall of his eight-year period of strongman rule in 2000.

A decision on who Keiko Fujimori would face in a run-off was delayed by several days after the National Office of Electoral Process (ONPE) found that a private contractor failed to deliver ballots to dozens of polling stations across the province of Lima, preventing more than 52,000 citizens from voting on time. One of her two leading contenders, former Lima mayor Rafael López Aliaga, alleged widespread fraud and called for the vote to be annulled. The EU election observer mission reported that it had found no evidence of fraud. But tension mounted as López Aliaga’s supporters mobilized to the street.

López Aliaga, known by his appropriate nickname “Porky,” is also a figure of the hard right, although of a more Catholic bent than Fujimori, and has similarly run on pledges of a harsh crackdown on soaring crime and the narco economy. In an echo of Trump’s Alligator Alcatraz, he has proposed building penal colonies in the Amazon rainforest, surrounded by moats filled with vipers.

López Aliaga has not dropped his demands for annullment, but it now emerges that Fujimori will face a contender from the left in the June 7 run-off. This is Roberto Sánchez Palomino of Juntos por el Perú. Sánchez is the political heir of imprisoned ex-president Pedro Castillo, a political outsider of campesino origins whose 2021 election shook up Peru’s establishment. Castillo’s ouster and detention by order of Congress the following year ended his contentious rule and sparked weeks of protests that were met with massive deadly repression. Sánchez, who had served in Castillo’s cabinet, similarly ran with strong support from rural Andean regions, traditionally excluded from Peruvian politics, and similarly wears a traditional campesino sombrero.

There is a sense of deju vu here, as Keiko Fujimori has made it as far as a presidential run-off in 2011, 2016 and 2021. During the first run, she brought in Rudolph Giuliani as “national security advisor.” In the second run (taking place five months before Trump was first elected here in Gringolandia), she was defeated by the center-right Pedro Pablo Kuczynski after Verónika Mendoza, the left-wing candidate who was bumped out of the race in the first round, threw her support behind him to avoid a re-Fujimorification of the country. As persident, it was Kuczynski who pardoned Alberto Fujimori, in a betrayal of the progressive-minded Peruvians who had helped elect him.

With the center now having effectively collapsed in Peruvian politics, this kind of outcome, at least, is excluded from possibility. However, a win by Keiko Fujimori on her fourth try for the presidency portends a far worse outcome. (Americas Quarterly, Jurist, France24, France24, AFP, Reuters)

Peru may seem far removed from the world stage compared to Hungary, but the Great Powers are definitely playing their chess game here as well. Florida Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar has called on Peru’s next government to “take back” the Chinese-controlled port of Chancay, portraying the deep-water facility as a military threat to the hemisphere. Salazar, chair of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere, said during a hearing on April 16 that Washington must help Peru wrest the megaport from Chinese hands. “The new Peruvian government, which will be elected next June, must take it back, that port, take it back, and the United States will help them,” Salazar said.

She argued that the port, just up the coast from Lima, has “dual usage” potential, meaning it could shift from commercial to military operations, allowing Chinese submarines, warships and aircraft carriers to operate from Peru’s territory. (SCMP)

Even a new President Fujimori would be unlikely to take this bait from Washington, as China, like the US, is a free-trade partner of Peru and top investor in its lucrative mineral sector. But there’s much contention about Chinese versus North American influence in the country. The last interim president, José Jerí, who had faced a wave of Gen Z protests last year, was finally removed by Congress this February following unregistered meetings with two Chinese businessmen. The incumbent interim president José María Balcázar is of the left, and popular anger at Peru’s traditional political class is palpable.

Whether it is the populist left of Sánchez or the populist right of Fujimori that prevails in June, the Great Power pressures on Peru will remain. The implications for Peru internally, however, will be very different—and this also has regional implications, as the right has made recent electoral gains throughout Latin America: just over the past months, in Chile, Bolivia and Costa Rica. A new right-authoritarian bloc is emerging, just as the Trump regime is launching new adventures in gunboat diplomacy.

Hopefully, Peru will not be the next addition to this bloc. But a Fujimori victory could mean a fatal blow to Peru’s deeply troubled democracy. A Sánchez victory, on the other hand, would heighten the social contradictions in Peru—with both opportunities for a more meaningful democracy, and dangers of a backlash from the conservative establishment.

Photo: Wikipedia

Featured speaker on April 3 was a ski-masked “Captain Marcos,” presumably the same charismatic spokesman once known as “Subcommander Marcos.” He delivered an exegesis entitled: “A Peephole into the Storm in the World: Nation-States Under Attack” (Una mirilla a la Tormenta en el Mundo: Los Estados-Nación bajo ataque). Marcos portrayed a supra-national imperialism under Donald Trump, in which “the nation-state has no decision-making power.” Marcos decried the “kidnapping” of Nicolás Maduro from Venezuela, and the US oil blockade on Cuba, especially noting that Mexico has been effectively barred from shipping oil to the Caribbean island nation. He hailed the tenacious resistance of the Cubans and Palestinians.

Marcos asserted that in the US-Israeli war against Iran, the big oil companies are the ones who benefit, as the price of oil has dramatically risen. “That’s what needs to be discussed: who is profiting from these wars?” (La Jornada via Mexico Solidarity Media)

Image: Enlace Zapatista

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Composite image via GIGA. Gen Z protesters in different countries use appropriated image from One Piece manga. Fair use rights asserted

“Every key climate indicator is flashing red,” said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. “Humanity has just endured the 11 hottest years on record. When history repeats itself 11 times, it is no longer a coincidence. It is a call to act.”

Most alarmingly, the analysis found that the Earth is now retaining more solar energy than it releases into space. Most of this trapped heat is being absorbed by the world’s oceans. Global ocean heat reached a record high in 2025, and that measure has risen twice as fast over the past 20 years as it did over the previous 40. Impacts of the current imbalance are likely to last centuries if not millennia. (TNH, DW, PRI, Scientific American)

Image: blende12/Pixabay

The World Food Programme (WFP) warned March 17 that the escalating hostilities in the Middle East could lead to record levels of food insecurity, and the largest disruption in the global economy and humanitarian efforts since the COVID-19 pandemic.

WFP deputy executive director and chief operating officer Carl Skau said: “If this conflict continues, it will send shockwaves across the globe, and families who already cannot afford their next meal will be hit the hardest.” Skau urged the international community to mount an adequately funded humanitarian response.

Since the United States and Israel launched airstrikes on Iran in late February, the conflict has spread to encompass much of the region, causing thousands of civilian casualties and forcibly displacing over 3 million people. The WFP predicts 45 million people may slide into acute hunger (a level known as IPC Phase 3+) if the conflict continues. Due to the heavy reliance of food and aid distribution on energy, the skyrocketing price of oil has placed heightened strain on already over-stretched aid supply lines. The disruption of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz has also increased fertilizer costs, posing a more long-term threat to food security.

In 2025, an estimated 318 million people across 68 countries were already experiencing acute food insecurity, with 41.1 million under “Emergency” conditions or worse (IPC Phase 4+). The number of people facing catastrophic hunger (Phase 5) remained alarmingly high in 2025, exceeding 1 million.

Import-reliant countries, predominantly in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, face the greatest risk. Humanitarian organizations are already spread thin by tightening budgets, as well as the proliferation and exacerbation of global crises. Global funding for foreign aid has contracted exponentially in recent years, with a sharp decline following President Trump’s signing of Executive Order 14169, which effectively suspended most operations of USAID. Together, these developments place extraordinary pressure on humanitarian organizations, leaving millions at risk of famine. Sudan and Somalia were named as particularly vulnerable.

From JURIST, March 19. Used with permission.

Note: Hunger in the Global South has already been exacerbated by Trump’s trade tariffs regime, while spikes in the price of oil and grain since the start of the Ukraine war in 2022 have contributed to popular privation and unrest worldwide.

Photo: Alex Blokha via Wikimedia Commons

The draft resolution urges states to fulfil their obligations in regard to climate change, in line with the advisory opinion issued by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in July 2024. These include the adoption of nationally determined contributions of atmospheric carbon to meet the Paris Agreement goal of limiting the global average temperature increase to well below 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.

The draft resolution also calls on UN member states to phase out fossil fuels, and to protect communities subject to forced displacement induced by climate change. This is a question of particular concern to Pacific island nations such as Vanuatu.

The draft resolution would also create an “International Register of Damage,” providing a transparent record of loss and damage linked to climate change, as Climate Home News reports. This echoes the ICJ’s advisory opinion that injured states may claim compensation for the non-compliance of climate change obligations.

Negotiations regarding the draft resolution are now underway. The UN General Assembly is expected to vote on the draft resolution at the end of March. Candy Ofime, climate justice researcher at Amnesty International, said: “This is a vital moment for states to show they stand on the side of climate justice—not delay, weaken, or turn away from their legal obligations and moral duty.”

The Amnesty statement called governments out for weakening global action on climate, denouncing the recent rescission of the 2009 Endangerment Finding and removal of greenhouse gas regulations by the administration of US President Donald Trump. The administration described the deregulation as “restoring the American Dream” by saving over $1.3 trillion, and making commutes and business operations more affordable for American citizens.

The Trump administration reportedly urged other governments to pressure Vanuatu to withdraw its draft resolution. According to Al Jazeera, a cable sent by the US Department of State indicated the administration’s “strong objection” to the draft resolution and described the ICJ opinion as “misguided claims of international legal obligations.” Ralph Regenvanu, Vanuatu’s environment minister, reposted Al Jazeera’s article on X (formerly Twitter).

Prompt government actions are urgently necessary to achieve the Paris Agreement goal. A November 2025 report predicted that even if governments realize their “highest possible ambition,” the global average temperature will still have peaked at 1.7°C above pre-industrial levels for 40 years before declining to 1.2°C above pre-industrial levels by 2100.

From JURIST, Feb. 14. Used with permission.

See our last reports on the UN climate process, and the World Court advisory opinion.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

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The court concluded that the government has violated the right to private and family life of the residents of Bonaire under Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR).

In regard to mitigation, the court found that while the Dutch Climate Act sets a goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050, neither the act nor its 2023 amendment set intermediate emissions-reduction targets. Both parties agreed that there was less than a 5% likelihood that the Netherlands could reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 43% compared to 2019 by 2030. Given the failure to quantify its remaining emission allowance, the court concluded that the Netherlands’ mitigation measures do not satisfy its convention and treaty obligations.

The court also noted the lack of a climate adaptation plan, sufficient scientific research, and adequate financial resources for Bonaire. These inadequacies persist despite the government’s acknowledgment that Bonaire is particularly vulnerable to climate change.

In addition, the ruling found that the government did not provide sufficient procedural safeguards to Bonaire residents, including access to information and public participation.

The recent advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice significantly influenced the Dutch court in determining the state’s obligations in regard to climate change. In its judgment, the Dutch court affirmed that the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement are legally binding on the Netherlands, alongside other regional and international human rights treaties. These treaty obligations include the duty to contribute equitably to the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.

Apart from the right to private and family life, the court also held that the lack of adaptation measures for Bonaire, contrasting comparable measures already in place for the European Netherlands, amounted to discrimination against residents of Bonaire. This, the court found, violates Article 14 of the ECHR and Article 1 of Protocol No. 12 to the Convention. According to Greenpeace, this ruling marks the first time that a court has recognized a state’s failure to develop climate policies for a municipality as discrimination.

Greenpeace brought the class action on behalf of approximately 26,000 residents on Bonaire. Responding to the ruling, Marieke Vellekoop, director of Greenpeace Netherlands, said that incoming prime minister Rob Jetten must now allocate funding for the mandated climate measures on Bonaire.

From JURIST, Jan. 29. Used with permission.

See our last reports on Bonaire, the UN climate process, and climate change litigation.

See also our podcast on the World Court advisory opinion.

Photo: Dialogue Earth

On Feb. 4, the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) is due to expire. If it does, it will mark the first time since the early 1970s that there will be no legally binding limits on US and Russian strategic nuclear forces without another agreement being under negotiation. (Chatham House)

Founded in 1945 by Albert Einstein, J. Robert Oppenheimer, and University of Chicago scientists who helped develop the first atomic weapons in the Manhattan Project, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists created the Doomsday Clock two years later, setting the hands at seven minutes of midnight. (BAS)

Image: misucell.com