About This Project

What Is This?

War Crimes 2026 is a sourced publication tracking alleged human-rights violations, unlawful-removal concerns, constitutional conflicts, and abuses of executive power associated with the Trump administration beginning January 20, 2025.

Every incident listed on this site is sourced from reporting, court filings, government records, statutes, or public advocacy material. The project makes editorial classifications, but it does not claim a court or tribunal has reached a final legal conclusion unless the entry says so explicitly.

Terminology And Thresholds

The project title is editorial framing, not a blanket allegation that every entry constitutes a chargeable war crime under domestic or international law.

Each incident is presented with two separate layers:

• Severity: the site's editorial assessment of how grave the reported rights or rule-of-law concern is
• Legal posture: whether the page is describing a source-backed record, active litigation, an official executive act, or a judicial finding already cited on the page

If a page does not cite a court ruling or comparable official finding, readers should treat legal terms on the site as documented commentary about the sources and the governing law, not as an adjudicated judgment.

Why Does This Exist?

Because accountability requires memory. Authoritarian regimes depend on the public's inability to keep track of the sheer volume of abuses. This site exists to ensure that nothing is forgotten, nothing is normalized, and nothing escapes the historical record.

Standards

Every incident on this site must meet the following standards:

• Sourced: At minimum one credible source (major news outlet, court filing, government document, or international body report)
• Dated: Specific dates for when events occurred
• Categorized: Classified by type and severity
• Procedurally Clear: Each incident identifies its current legal or procedural posture
• Factual: Descriptions identify what is reported, what is alleged, and what has been adjudicated
• Explicit About Uncertainty: When legal status is unresolved, entries label the issue as an allegation, litigation position, or editorial assessment

Severity Levels

• Critical Rights and Rule-of-Law Concern: Conduct that, based on the reporting and cited legal materials, raises unusually grave questions about unlawful detention, refoulement, executive defiance, or severe due-process breakdowns
• Serious Rights Violation: Serious constitutional, statutory, or international-law concerns supported by strong public evidence
• Major Abuse of Power: Significant abuses of power, institutional destruction, or systematic rights violations
• Significant Democratic Concern: Actions that undermine democratic norms, rule of law, or government accountability

Legal Framework

This site currently draws most often on the following frameworks when they are relevant to a specific entry:

• The U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights
• Federal statutes including the Immigration and Nationality Act, the Inspector General Act, and related congressional-oversight provisions
• The Refugee Convention (1951) and Protocol (1967), and related non-refoulement principles
• The UN Convention Against Torture where removal or detention conditions are directly at issue
• Constitutional and statutory authorities governing executive clemency, administrative process, and separation of powers

The site may reference additional international-law frameworks, including armed-conflict law, only when a specific incident page directly relies on them and cites sourcing for that connection.

The existence of a framework on this list does not mean a court has already found that any given incident violates it. Where legal status is contested or unresolved, the relevant incident page says so.

Contributing

This is an open-source project. If you have documented, sourced incidents to add, contributions are welcome. All submissions must meet the standards above.

Disclaimer

This site is a work of journalism and political commentary protected by the First Amendment. It documents publicly reported events using public sources and editorial judgment. It is not legal advice, it is not a court filing, and it is not affiliated with any government, political party, or advocacy organization.