We must speak truth to power for just and responsive states

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Yesterday was International Day of Multilateralism and Diplomacy for Peace. Given the state of Planet Earth captured in Amnesty International’s World Human Rights 2026 report released this week, what has changed in a year, and what can be done to raise the world’s grades?
 
Eight years ago, the United Nations proclaimed the International Day to affirm that peace, human rights, and sustainable development were best achieved through multilateral cooperation and diplomatic dialogue, not unilateralism or military might. Equally sovereign, smaller and weaker states are better protected from power politics without rules.

International and regional conventions and courts matter. All states bear a collective responsibility for atrocity prevention, climate change, global public health, forced displacement, and illicit transnational financial flows. No country secures its future by standing alone.
 
The release of the Amnesty International report two days before Multilateralism Day was timely. Compared to last year’s report, this year’s is both depressing and didactic.

With 2025 findings of genocide in Palestine, crimes against humanity in Ukraine, and mass war crimes in Sudan, Myanmar, and elsewhere, the deliberate sabotage of international law and norms may have just earned Planet Earth an F grade.
 
As many East Africans know, transnationally coordinated cross‑border repression of dissent is the new normal. While top‑level impunity is deepening, citizens, civic groups, and some courts continue to push back.

Dockworkers across Europe and North Africa blocked arms shipments to the Middle East. The European Council introduced the Aggression Tribunal on Ukraine, and the ICC secured some arrests and convictions.
 
Refreshingly, Malawi and four other countries expanded abortion rights while Bolivia and Burkina Faso prohibited child marriage for girls and boys. However, attacks on women, trans and LGBTI people intensified significantly. No international agreements, however, were reached on development financing, unsustainable debt levels, or phasing out fossil fuels and meeting climate finance targets.

Kenya reflects these global trends. Peaceful protesters still face unlawful lethal force, disappearances, intimidation, and arbitrary arrests. Counterterror and cybercrime laws, stalled IPOA investigations, or ODPP case withdrawals are normalising repression.

The use of paid street goons and online trolls signals a disturbing turn to state violence by proxy. Despite civic pressure, the GBV taskforce remains stalled. As avenues for justice, reparations, and non-recurrence narrow, so does confidence in our criminal justice system.

Any teacher knows that when students are failing exams, effective remedial action must address their understanding, underlying causes, and well-being. Further, there is a shared responsibility between the student, parents, and the school. The same is true for citizens, leaders, and states.
 
We must press past symptoms to confront structural inequalities, corruption, elite impunity, and captured institutions. Without space for citizens to speak and act, the anger from rising living costs and shrinking essential services will overwhelm more governments than Bulgaria, Madagascar, and Nepal.

New public accountability and people’s power pathways are needed. To create public trust and new obligations, diplomacy and advocacy must be principled and evidence‑based. Naming‑and‑shaming or back-of-the-tent policy dialogues are both sterile now.
 
Denying our freedom of conscience and expression for “development gains” has to stop. Development finance, foreign investment, diaspora remittances, and our taxes must be tied to public accountability, or they will be abused.

Given how badly Planet Earth is doing, progress must be continuously publicly monitored and compliance enforced. When states make our lives unbearable, we need more mass civic protest, shadow reporting, cross‑border solidarity, sanctions, suspensions, arms embargoes, and sustained multilateral pressure.
 
Like our children, we cannot cancel failing states, nor are they our destiny. The decline in human rights is reversible. The international human rights multilateral system has endured. Victims and activists have refused silence.

Under pressure, like Hungary’s Viktor Orban recently, powerful authoritarians have been rejected. States can reform, and their public legitimacy can be rebuilt, but it will take our courage to collectively speak truth to power and create just and responsive states. The authoritarian mask has fallen. The next move is ours.
 
Houghton is Amnesty International Kenya Executive Director, and Njenga is Country Researcher

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