Governments increasingly view human rights as "a luxury" they can ill afford, Human Rights Watch says, warning that abuses fuel crises in world trouble spots like Syria and Ukraine.
Western powers, including the United States, are far from blameless and in some cases their wrongdoing has fed the very climate in which serial rights abusers like Islamic State group jihadists thrive.
Ignoring human rights while addressing global security risks "fails to get at the root causes that gave rise to many of these threats," HRW director Kenneth Roth told reporters in Beirut on Thursday.
"In this difficult moment, they seem to argue, human rights must be put on the back burner, a luxury for less trying times," Roth said, introducing the 660-page HRW World Report 2015.
Governments that flout human rights during crises are not only violating international law, but are following "short-sighted and counter-productive" strategies, he added.
"Protecting human rights and enabling people to have a say in how their governments address the crises will be key to their resolution."
The emergence of the Islamic State (IS) group was in part fuelled by the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq and by the West's failure to address atrocities in Syria.
The Iraq invasion led to a security vacuum and abuses in Abu Ghraib prison and Guantanamo Bay.
Later the US and Britain "largely shut their eyes" to the sectarian policies of Shi'ite prime minister Nuri al-Maliki and his persecution of the Sunni minority.
In Syria, the US cobbled together a coalition to combat IS jihadists, but no nations have stepped up pressure on President Bashar al-Assad "to stop the slaughter of civilians."
And in Egypt the global response to "unprecedented repression" by general-turned-president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, has been "shamefully inadequate."
Washington shied away from denouncing the Egyptian military's overthrow of elected Islamist president Mohamed Morsi a coup.
"ISIS can now credibly argue that violence is the only path to power for Islamists because when they sought power through fair elections and won, they were ousted with little international protest," Roth said.
Human rights abuses in Russia, which stifled critical voices inside the country over the past two years, and the West's "relatively narrow reaction ... may well have aggravated the Ukrainian crisis."
Yet, the West has also fallen back on "a good-versus-bad mentality" and in its desire to show Ukraine as a victim of Russian aggression has been "reluctant to address Ukrainian abuses."
The need for security in the digital age has also triggered concerns for Human Rights Watch, alarmed by daily data snooping by governments targeting hundreds of millions of people.
Senior HRW Internet researcher Cynthia Wong said the US and Britain remain the leaders in the field, having "thrown away any notion of proportionality."
With few privacy protections built in, she warned, "a truly Orwellian scenario could unfold."
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