Who is Francesca Albanese, the UN expert sanctioned by the US?

UN special rapporteur Francesca Albanese has been an outspoken critic of what she describes as the Israeli “genocide” against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. She has also strongly supported the arrest warrants issued against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the sanctions for what he said were “illegitimate and shameful efforts” by the special rapporteur to engage with the ICC to “prompt action” against America and Israel.

“Albanese’s campaign of political and economic warfare against the United States and Israel will no longer be tolerated,” Rubio posted on X on Wednesday (July 9).

Who is Francesca Albanese?

Albanese is an international lawyer who has been a UN special rapporteur on human rights in occupied Palestinian territories since May 2022. She is an affiliate scholar at the Institute for the Study of International Migration at Georgetown University, and a specialist in human rights and the Middle East.

Albanese is co-author of Palestinian Refugees in International Law (2020), and has written extensively on Palestine and the mandate and work of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).

Albanese has strongly condemned Israel’s actions in Gaza since the beginning of its campaign against Hamas in October 2023, and of the Trump administration’s repeated attempts to silence voices that are critical of Israel.

On July 3, while addressing the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), she accused Israel of “one of the cruellest genocides in modern history”, and described the situation in Gaza as “apocalyptic”. Israel’s actions were part of a decades-long “settler colonial project of erasure” that had been escalated in recent months through the use of military force, starvation, and mass displacement, Albanese said.

What does a UN special rapporteur do?

The special rapporteur is an independent expert appointed by the UNHRC to report on situations of human rights violations in occupied Palestinian territories. The mandate of the special rapporteur derives from the 1993 resolution of the Committee on Human Rights.

The rapporteur works with governments and civil society, and reports her assessment of the human rights situation publicly. She makes regular site visits and reports annually to the UNHRC, which provides her with logistical assistance.

And what is the International Criminal Court?

The ICC is an international tribunal headquartered in The Hague, Netherlands. The ICC was established by the Rome Statute, an international treaty that was adopted on July 17, 1998, and entered into force on July 1, 2002.

The ICC aims to “end impunity for the perpetrators of the most serious crimes of concern to the international community” — genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression.

The ICC, which has a cooperative and complementary relationship with the UN, is the only international court with the jurisdiction to prosecute individuals. It has charged Netanyahu and Israel’s former Minister of Defence Yoav Gallant with crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza for allegedly depriving Palestinians in the enclave of “objects indispensable to their survival, including food, water, and medicine”.

So what is America’s problem with Albanese’s work?

Rubio said that the US and Israel are not parties to the Rome Statute of the ICC, and Albanese’s actions were therefore “a gross infringement on the sovereignty of both countries”. He alleged that Albanese had “spewed unabashed antisemitism, expressed support for terrorism, and open contempt for the United States, Israel, and the West”.

Rubio described Albanese’s support for the ICC’s arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant as “biased”, and accused her of sending “threatening letters” to various entities, including American companies across different sectors.

The sanctions have been imposed under President Donald Trump’s Executive Order 14203, “Imposing Sanctions on the International Criminal Court,” Section 1(a)(ii)(A), signed on February 6, 2025. The order imposed sanctions against individuals associated with the ICC, which it said had “engaged in illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America and its close ally Israel”.

This section of the order allows the US to sanction individuals who have “directly engaged in any effort by the ICC to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute a protected person without consent of that person’s country of nationality”.

Last month, the Trump administration sanctioned four ICC judges for “illegitimate and baseless actions” against the US and its allies.

The writer is a summer intern at The Indian Express.