Amnesty International (AI) warned that the world is on the verge of the collapse of international law, due to repeated human rights abuses and frequent attacks on armed conflicts by States and armed groups, such as in the current crisis in the Middle East.

The non-governmental organization, based in London, released its report ‘The state of human rights in the world’ of 2023. It lists a series of abuses in different countries, such as the repression of dissent, the illegitimate use of force against protesters or arbitrary arrests.

This NGO also warned that the collapse of the rule of law is likely to accelerate with the rapid advance of artificial intelligence (AI) that, together with the mastery of large technologies, runs the risk of a greater violation of people’s rights if the regulation is still lagging behind.

At a press conference in the British capital to present the document, the secretary general of Amnesty International, Agnés Callamard, recalled that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was signed in 1948 designed for “all of us, without exception,” but that now the world is attending an “erosion of the rule of law due to massive violations in the name of terrorism and security.”

Many powerful countries, he said, are abandoning “humanity and universality” enshrined in that declaration, signed under the slogan of “never again” due to the atrocities of World War II.

“The Amnesty International report presents a bleak panorama of alarming repression of human rights and prolific violations of international norms, all in the midst of an ever-deepening global inequality, superpowers competing for supremacy and a growing climate crisis,” he said.

The Amnesty International report makes special mention of armed conflicts. It indicates that the violation of international humanitarian law, also known as “laws of war”, has had devastating consequences for the civilian population.

In many armed conflicts, government forces have launched ground and air attacks against populated areas. Using weapons with a wide range of action, while racism occupies a central place in some of these conflicts.

Specifically, the crisis in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories is linked to an extreme form of racial discrimination, Amnesty points out.

For the organization, the Israeli system of separation from the Palestinian people is based on the fact that Israel oppresses and dominates the Palestinian population through territorial fragmentation, segregation and control, the set-aside of land and property and the denial of economic and social rights.

In a conflict that shows no signs of diminishing, the evidence of war crimes continues to accumulate while the Israeli government mocks, in its opinion, international law in Gaza.

After the attacks perpetrated by Hamas on October 7, Israeli authorities responded with relentless air strikes against populated civilian areas that often annihilated entire families. Almost 1.9 million Palestinians were forcibly displaced. They restricted access to humanitarian aid that was desperately needed despite the growing famine in Gaza, he adds.

“Israel’s flagrant contempt for international law is aggravated by the failure of its allies to stop the indescribable shedding of civilian blood inflicted in Gaza.”

Many of those allies were the architects of that legal system after World War II,” said the secretary general.

Racial discrimination has also manifested itself in the responses to these conflicts, according to the report.

Many governments have imposed illegitimate restrictions on solidarity protests with the Palestinian population, he added.

The governments of Germany, Austria, France, Hungary, Poland and Switzerland – the document indicates – preventively banned this type of protest in 2023. Alleging risks to public order or national security that, in some cases, were based on racist stereotypes.

Dissidence was repressed through the adoption of strong measures against freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly. While arbitrary detentions and imprisonments of human rights defenders, members of the political opposition and activists were documented. And his sometimes subjected to torture and other mistreatment.

According to the text, many States neglected economic injustices and the climate crisis. Governments often treated refugees and migrants in an abusive and racist way.

Among other things, AI denounces deeply rooted discrimination against women, LGBTI people and indigenous peoples. It emphasizes that multinational companies were part of abuses.

Amnesty focuses its report on several global trends: the treatment of the civilian population in armed conflicts, the growing offensive against gender justice, the disproportionate impact of economic crises, climate change and environmental degradation, and the threats of new technologies, such as artificial intelligence.

In his opinion, these issues represent critical challenges for human rights around the world. They demand a concerted response from the States to face them and avoid new conflicts or that existing ones are aggravated.

The Senate plenary approved in the second debate the pension reform of the Government of Colombian President, Gustavo Petro, which will now have to go through the House of Representatives before becoming law.

“Yes, it was possible, it could, it could be,” shouted the bench of the ruling Historical Pact about the approval of the initiative, which also happens just two days after the massive protests against the Government.

The objective of the project is to maintain the retirement age at 57 for women and 62 for men, but to expand the system so that everyone can benefit from resources even without having contributed enough in salaries.

The initiative aims to expand the life annuity for those who have not contributed enough and a subsidy for people in conditions of extreme poverty and vulnerable.

The life annuity will be for those over 65 years of age who have contributed between 150 and 999 weeks, and it will depend on the weeks and the contribution given by the State.

“This is the equity that this bill achieves, but above all that three million older adults can begin to enjoy this benefit from July 1, 2025, which is the validity of this bill,” said the Minister of Labor, Gloria Inés Ramírez, after approval in the Senate.

He added: “We will be able to make Colombia move towards a country of rights, but above all where we are going to make both private funds and the public system fulfill their function: to give pension and protection to the old age of Colombia.”

Now the project must pass, before June 20, two debates in the House of Representatives to become law, a procedure in which the Government is very fair in time.

“Tomorrow we will be living in the House of Representatives (…) and we hope that between now and June 20, Colombia will have the possibility of having this law that we need so much,” Ramírez added.

The United States Senate approved the $95 billion package in military aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, which would give the green light to the sending of the money after months of legislative blockade.

The measure was approved by 75 votes in favor and 20 against.

The Senate has put together in a single text four bills that the House of Representatives approved last Saturday.

On the one hand, $61 billion in military aid for Ukraine, another 26,400 for Israel and 8,100 for Taiwan.

A fourth bill seeks to force the Chinese ownership of TikTok to sell the company in a period of one year if it does not want to face a ban in the United States.

“Finally, tonight, after more than six months of hard work, the United States sends a message to the whole world,” Chuck Schumer, Democratic leader in the U.S. Senate, said after the vote.

According to Schumer, with this vote USA. The United States tells the world that it “will do everything possible to safeguard democracy.”

The White House has been asking the Legislature for months for the joint approval of these military aid packages, but the opposition of Republican sectors to assistance to Ukraine has caused a long blockade.

A minority part of the Democratic group has opposed the aid package to Israel.

Iran’s attack on Israel two Saturdays ago caused the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives to lift its blockade to jointly approve foreign military aid packages.

Now it will only take the sig of the president, Joe Biden, for the money and weapons to begin to flow into the Ukrainian trenches, which have been begging the United States for help for months in the face of the advance of Russian forces.

Biden spoke on the phone on Monday with the president of Ukraine, Volodymir Zelensky, who after the call and in a message on social network X, said that the US president had told him that this assistance will include long-range artillery.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine two years ago, the United States has channeled military aid for more than 75 billion dollars.