UN Photo/Mark Garten

On 9 July the United States Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, issued a press statement saying that, following President Trump’s Executive Order imposing sanctions on the International Criminal Court, Rubio was now imposing sanctions on Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Palestine.

The statement claimed that:

Albanese has directly engaged with the International Criminal Court (ICC) in efforts to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute nationals of the United States or Israel, without the consent of those two countries. Neither the United States nor Israel is party to the Rome Statute, making this action a gross infringement on the sovereignty of both countries.

The United States has repeatedly condemned and objected to the biased and malicious activities of Albanese that have long made her unfit for service as a Special Rapporteur. Albanese has spewed unabashed antisemitism, expressed support for terrorism, and open contempt for the United States, Israel, and the West.

That bias has been apparent across the span of her career, including recommending that the ICC, without a legitimate basis, issue arrest warrants targeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

These sanctions mean that Albanese can no longer visit the United States to report to the UN Security Council without risking detention. Any assets she has in the US are now blocked.

Rubio’s statement continues:

The United States has repeatedly condemned and objected to the biased and malicious activities of Albanese that have long made her unfit for service as a Special Rapporteur. Albanese has spewed unabashed antisemitism, expressed support for terrorism, and open contempt for the United States, Israel, and the West. That bias has been apparent across the span of her career, including recommending that the ICC, without a legitimate basis, issue arrest warrants targeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

The full press report can be found here.

Albanese is an Italian legal scholar and expert on human rights. She has been Special Rapporteur since 2022 and has been vocal in calling for an end to what she describes as the “genocide” that Israel is waging against Palestinians in Gaza. Israel and the US, which provides military support to Israel, have both strongly denied that accusation.

Albanese’s various responses include the following:

[O]n this day more than ever: I stand firmly and convincingly on the side of justice, as I have always done.

[I come from the court’s founding country, where lawyers and judges have] defended justice at great cost and often with their own life…I intend to honour that tradition.

[T]he powerful punishing those who speak for the powerless, it is not a sign of strength, but of guilt.

All eyes must remain on Gaza, where children are dying of starvation in their mothers’ arms, while their fathers and siblings are bombed into pieces while searching for food.

My concern is there are people dying in Gaza while you and I are speaking, and the United Nations are totally unable to intervene.

See her response to Middle East Eye on 10 July in the video below.