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The United States has officially imposed sanctions on a United Nations human rights expert over her investigations and public condemnation of Israel’s actions in Gaza.
Some shit you should know before you read: If you’re unaware, Francesca Albanese is the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories. As a Special Rapporteur, Albanese is not a UN employee but an independent expert appointed by the UN Human Rights Council to monitor and report on specific human rights issues. Albanese has been one of the most vocal critics of Israel’s military actions in Gaza, repeatedly referring to them as “acts of genocide and apartheid.” In August 2024, Albanese compared Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip to the Holocaust, calling it a “concentration camp of the 21st century.” In a report titled “From the Economy of Occupation to the Economy of Genocide,” she accused 48 international companies (including US firms) of profiting from Israel’s “killing machine” and called for their prosecution by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
What’s going on now: In a notable development, Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed the US was imposing sanctions on Albanese over what he called her “campaign of political and economic warfare against the United States and Israel.” Rubio accused Albanese of “directly engag[ing] with the International Criminal Court in efforts to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute nationals of the United States or Israel,” which he called a “gross infringement on the sovereignty of both countries.” He further claimed Albanese had “spewed unabashed antisemitism,” expressed “open contempt for the United States, Israel, and the West,” and acted in a manner that made her “unfit for service as a Special Rapporteur.”
According to Rubio, Albanese had escalated her activities by sending “threatening letters to dozens of entities worldwide,” accusing them of facilitating Israeli war crimes. “We will not tolerate these campaigns of political and economic warfare, which threaten our national interests and sovereignty,” Rubio declared. He described her actions as “illegitimate and shameful” and insisted the US would continue taking measures “to respond to lawfare” and “protect our sovereignty and that of our allies.”
Albanese dismissed the sanctions, calling them a form of intimidation. In a message to Al Jazeera, she wrote, “No comment on mafia-style intimidation techniques. Busy reminding member states of their obligations to stop and punish genocide. And those who profit from it.” On social media, she doubled down, writing, “We must stop this genocide, whose short-term goal is completing the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, while also profiteering from the killing machine devised to perform it. No one is safe until everyone is safe.”
The move has drawn widespread condemnation from the United Nations. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk called for the “prompt reversal” of the sanctions and denounced “attacks and threats” against UN-appointed experts. UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric warned the action set a “dangerous precedent,” emphasizing that “the use of unilateral sanctions against Special Rapporteurs or any other UN expert or official is unacceptable.”
