States’ failure to uphold human rights increased the space for non-state actors to commit crimes under international law and other abuses. These included organized criminal entities, which in some cases controlled entire territories, often with the complicity or acquiescence of security forces. National and transnational corporations sought to take control of the land and territory of groups including Indigenous Peoples and – in countries like Peru and Nicaragua – peasant farmers. Failures to uphold economic, social and cultural rights caused widespread suffering. A reversal of political rhetoric by the USA under President Trump reduced the chances of the US Congress passing legislation to lift the economic embargo on Cuba – and so perpetuated the embargo’s adverse impacts on Cubans. Paraguay’s authorities failed to ensure the right to adequate housing following forced evictions. There were thousands of new cases of cholera in Haiti. Tens of thousands of people were displaced from their homes and struggled with badly damaged infrastructure in countries in the Caribbean, including in the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, following two major hurricanes, among other natural disasters. In Mexico, two devastating earthquakes that cost hundreds of lives compromised people’s rights to adequate housing and education. At the Organization of American States (OAS) General Assembly, held in Cancún, Mexico, in June, there was a clear lack of political leadership to address some of the region’s most pressing human rights issues. A group of countries tried to condemn the crisis in Venezuela, without acknowledging their own failures to respect and protect human rights. After the previous year’s financial crisis, the OAS took a step forward by doubling the budget allocation for the Inter-American human rights system – although the funding was to be allocated under certain conditions, which could limit the ability of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights to hold states accountable for human rights violations. In the USA, President Trump wasted little time in putting his anti-rights rhetoric of discrimination and xenophobia into action, threatening a major rollback on justice and freedoms – including by signing a series of repressive executive orders that threatened the human rights of millions, at home and abroad. This included abusive USA-Mexico border enforcement practices such as the increased detention of asylum-seekers and their families; extreme restrictions on women’s and girls’ access to sexual and reproductive health services in the USA and elsewhere; repeal of protections for LGBTI workers and transgender students; and permission for the Dakota Access Pipeline to be completed – threatening the water source of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and other Indigenous Peoples, as well as violating their right to free, prior and informed consent. Yet growing disenfranchisement did not equate to disengagement. Emerging social discontent inspired people to take to the streets, stand up for their rights and demand an end to repression, marginalization and injustice. Examples included the massive demonstrations in support of activist Santiago Maldonado, who was found dead after going missing in the context of a demonstration marred by police violence in a Mapuche community in Argentina, and the massive social movement of “Ni Una Menos” (“not one less woman”) – denouncing femicide and violence against women and girls – in various countries in the region. Massive grassroots and political opposition in the USA resisted some of the policies and decisions by the Trump administration that undermined human rights, including attempts to ban people from several Muslim-majority countries from entering the USA and to reduce the number of refugees eligible for admission; threats to increase the number of detainees at the US detention centre in Guantánamo Bay; and an attempt to take away health care coverage from millions in the USA. 28 Amnesty International Report 2017/18