Amnesty International released its Annual Report 2026: The State of the World’s Human Rights (April 2026), providing a global assessment of human rights across regions for the previous year. The report documents human rights concerns in 144 countries in 2025.
Human Level’s Take:
- Amnesty International’s latest global human rights report paints a troubling picture for human rights. A key development: more and more governments are limiting civic space or failing to uphold human rights obligations. Human rights protections are under increasing strain globally, with restrictions on freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly becoming more widespread.
- The report also highlights a rise in armed conflicts and political instability across regions, showing that these dynamics are contributing to displacement and insecurity. This can have ripple effects for human rights throughout communities and regions.
- Another significant trend for this year is the growing use of digital technologies, including surveillance tools and AI, and how this is affecting rights such as privacy and freedom of expression. The report highlights concerns around how these technologies are deployed and governed, placing business models and design choices at the centre of attention.
- In parallel, environmental degradation and climate-related impacts driven by private sector activities are affecting access to health, food and livelihoods. These pressures are often compounded by economic inequality and weak protections for affected communities.
- So where does the private sector sit in all of this? Rising human rights impacts globally are already showing up in company operations and value chains, affecting the stability of operating contexts, and changing the risk landscape for companies.
- There are a few key things companies can prioritise to keep ahead in a higher-risk world. In conflict and high-risk situations, companies can adapt by implementing heightened human rights due diligence processes, including enhanced risk assessments and ongoing monitoring in high-risk areas. Where conflict and instability are rampant and rule of law is limited, companies will need to take proactive measures to manage risks and impacts, by embedding human rights standards into internal governance and decision-making, and implementing clear oversight and escalation procedures — independent of local regulatory enforcement.
- Some actions will be especially valuable for sectors flagged in the report. For tech companies, human rights risk assessments are an important tool to understand how risks are showing up in practice, and safeguards for oversight and transparency are table-stakes. For land-based sectors like agribusiness and extractives, operationalising human rights and environmental due diligence can ensure risks to people and planet are assessed and managed in an integrated way.
Some key takeaways:
- Global human rights protections are under increasing strain: The global analysis in Amnesty International’s latest report indicates that, as of 2025, human rights conditions are under strain across multiple regions, with widespread patterns of deterioration alongside limited areas of progress. The report documents a global spread of authoritarian practices, including restrictions on freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly, alongside increased repression of dissent and civil society. It also highlights escalating armed conflicts, persistent discrimination, and insufficient action on economic inequality and climate change, all of which continue to affect vulnerable populations. At the same time, the report points to the weakening of international human rights systems, with powerful states undermining multilateral frameworks and accountability mechanisms. Overall, the findings suggest a global environment where human rights protections are uneven and increasingly challenged across political, social, and economic dimensions.
- Emerging human rights risks are intensifying and expanding in scope: The report identifies a range of emerging and intensifying human rights issues with wide-reaching impacts. These include the growing use of digital technologies, such as surveillance systems and AI which are affecting rights to privacy, freedom of expression and non-discrimination. It also highlights the expansion of climate- and environment-related harms, where business activities contribute to environmental degradation that impacts health, livelihoods and access to resources. In addition, the report points to increasing pressures linked to economic inequality and insecure work, particularly within global supply chains. These developments are occurring alongside shrinking civic space and reduced access to remedy, creating a context in which human rights risks are becoming more complex and interconnected across sectors and geographies.
- Business activities play a significant role in shaping human rights risks across sectors: The report highlights specific ways in which business activities intersect with human rights across sectors, particularly in technology, agribusiness and extractive industries. In the technology sector, it notes concerns related to social media platforms, pointing to the need for changes to business models to better prevent and address human rights harms linked to content and platform design. In agribusiness, it documents ongoing land invasions, violence and armed attacks in areas of rapid expansion, affecting local communities and land rights. It also links extractive activities to threats to Indigenous People and impacts on the right to a healthy environment, alongside persistent food insecurity. The report flags the importance of strong human rights due diligence regulation, underscoring it as an essential tool to manage human rights risks and impacts. However, it also cautions that regulations have been watered down in some cases (like the EU CSDDD) and that the proliferation of lawsuits by companies against civil society is having a chilling effect on corporate accountability, suggesting an important role for companies in ensuring that their own practices are responsible.
