The United Nations leader warned Monday that "the rule of force" was spreading, as the powerful trample on international law and wield artificial intelligence and other technologies to attack human rights.
"Human rights are under a full-scale attack around the world," Antonio Guterres told the opening of the U.N. Human Rights Council's annual session in Geneva.
"The rule of law is being outmuscled by the rule of force."
The U.N. secretary-general stressed that "this assault is not coming from the shadows, or by surprise. It is happening in plain sight, and often led by those who hold the greatest power".
In his final in-person address to the U.N.'s top rights body, Guterres said the worst conflict-hit areas were not the only places where rights were eroding.
"Around the world, human rights are being pushed back deliberately, strategically and sometimes proudly," he said.
"We are living in a world where mass suffering is excused away, where humans are used as bargaining chips, where international law is treated as a mere inconvenience."
U.N. rights chief Volker Turk echoed the concerns.
In a "deeply worrying trend," he warned that "domination and supremacy are making a comeback."
"A fierce competition for power, control and resources is playing out on the world stage at a rate and intensity unseen for the past 80 years," he warned.
"The use of force to resolve disputes between and within countries is becoming normalized."
Turk highlighted how "the gears of global power are shifting," calling for people to band together to protect rights and create "a strong counterbalance to the top-down, autocratic trends we see today."
