The United States is enacting sanctions against Francesca Albanese, the special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories for the United Nations, who has been a staunch critic of Israel’s military actions backed by the US in Gaza. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently stated:
“Today, I am implementing sanctions on UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese due to her illegitimate and disgraceful attempts to incite action from the [International Criminal Court] against officials, corporations, and executives from the US and Israel.”
In a post on X, Albanese commented:
In reaction to the announcement made by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Agnès Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International, stated:
“Following the recent sanctions against the International Criminal Court, the measures announced today are a continuation of the Trump administration’s assault on international law and its efforts to protect the Israeli government from accountability at all costs. They are the latest in a series of Trump administration policies seeking to intimidate and silence those who dare speak out for Palestinians’ human rights. Instead of attacking the Special Rapporteur and further undermining the rule-based order, the US government should focus on putting an end to its unconditional support for Israel, enabling total impunity for its crimes in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”
“States must forcefully reject these disgraceful, vindictive sanctions and exert maximum diplomatic pressure on the US government to reverse them. The United Nations must also fully support her as an independent UN expert appointed by the UN Human Rights Council. Governments around the world and all actors who believe in the rule-based order and international law must do everything in their power to mitigate and block the effect of the sanctions against Francesca Albanese and, more generally, to protect the work and independence of Special Rapporteurs.”
Listen to our Wednesday MIDWEEK WIRE Broadcast where we discussed with special guest, international human rights lawyer, Arnaud Develay, the worrying trend which indicates the total dismantling of the post WWII international system and legal framework.
.
There is little doubt that Francesca Alananese’s daming report, published on June 16, 2025, “From economy of occupation to economy of genocide“, ruffled some feathers, including Trump’s tech bros. The trump administration is clearly uncomfortable with the report, which analyses the corporate framework enabling Israel’s settler-colonial efforts to displace Palestinians in occupied territories, highlighting how too many corporations are profiting from Israel’s war economy marked by illegal occupation, apartheid, and genocide, while political leaders evade accountability. Counter Currents has the story…
IMAGE: Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories. (Source:
Chris Hedges reports for Counter Currents…
The Persecution of Francesca Albanese
The sanctioning by the Trump administration of Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur, is an ominous harbinger of the end of the rule of international law.
When the history of the genocide in Gaza is written, one of the most courageous and outspoken champions for justice and the adherence to international law will be Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur, whom the Trump administration is sanctioning today. Her office is tasked with monitoring and reporting on human rights violations that Israel commits against Palestinians.
Albanese, who regularly receives death threats and endures well-orchestrated smear campaigns directed by Israel and its allies, valiantly seeks to hold those who support and sustain the genocide accountable. She lambasts what she calls “the moral and political corruption of the world” that allows the genocide to continue. Her office has issued detailed reports documenting war crimes in Gaza and the West Bank, one of which, called “Genocide as colonial erasure,” I have reprinted as an appendix in my latest book, “A Genocide Foretold.”
She has informed private organisations that they are “criminally liable” for assisting Israel in carrying out the genocide in Gaza. She announced that if true, as has been reported, that the former British prime minister David Cameron threatened to defund and withdraw from the International Criminal Court (ICC) after it issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant, which Cameron and the other former British prime minister Rishi Sunak could be charged with a criminal offense for, under the Rome Statue. The Rome Statute criminalises those who seek to prevent war crimes from being prosecuted.
She has called on top European Union (EU) officials to face charges of complicity in war crimes over their support for the genocide, saying that their actions cannot be met with impunity. She was a champion of the Madleen flotilla that sought to break the blockade of Gaza and deliver humanitarian aid, writing that the boat, which was intercepted by Israel, was carrying not only supplies, but a message of humanity.
You can see the interview I did with Albanese here.
Her latest report lists 48 corporations and institutions, including Palantir Technologies Inc., Lockheed Martin, Alphabet Inc. (Google), Amazon, International Business Machine Corporation (IBM), Caterpillar Inc., Microsoft Corporation and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), along with banks and financial firms such as BlackRock, insurers, real estate firms and charities, which in violation of international law, are making billions from the occupation and the genocide of Palestinians.
You can read my article on Albanese’s most recent report here.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio condemned her support for the ICC, four of whose judges have been sanctioned by the U.S. for issuing arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant last year. He criticised Albanese for her efforts to prosecute American or Israeli nationals who sustain the genocide, saying she is unfit for service as a special rapporteur. Rubio also accused Albanese of having “spewed unabashed antisemitism, expressed support for terrorism, and open contempt for the United States, Israel, and the West.” The sanctions will most likely prevent Albanese from travelling to the U.S. and will freeze any assets she may have in the country.
The attack against Albanese presages a world without rules, one where rogue states, such as the U.S. and Israel, are permitted to carry out war crimes and genocide without any accountability or restraint. It exposes the subterfuges we use to fool ourselves and attempt to fool others. It reveals our hypocrisy, cruelty and racism. No one, from now on, will take seriously our stated commitments to democracy, freedom of expression, the rule of law or human rights. And who can blame them? We speak exclusively in the language of force, the language of brutes, the language of mass slaughter, the language of genocide.
“The acts of killing, the mass killing, the infliction of psychological and physical torture, the devastation, the creation of conditions of life that would not allow the people in Gaza to live, from the destruction of hospitals, the mass forced displacement and the mass homelessness, while people were being bombed daily, and the starvation — how can we read these acts in isolation?” Albanese asked in an interview I did with her when we discussed her report, “Genocide as colonial erasure.”
The militarized drones, helicopter gunships, walls and barriers, checkpoints, coils of concertina wire, watchtowers, detention centers, deportations, brutality and torture, denial of entry visas, apartheidesque existence that comes with being undocumented, loss of individual rights and electronic surveillance, are as familiar to desperate migrants along the Mexican border, or attempting to enter Europe, as they are to Palestinians.
This is what awaits those whom Frantz Fanon calls “the wretched of the earth.”
Those who defend the oppressed, such as Albanese, will be treated like the oppressed.
See more news from Counter Currents
READ MORE PALESTINE NEWS AT: 21st CENTURY WIRE PALESTINE FILES
SUPPORT OUR INDEPENDENT MEDIA PLATFORM – BECOME A MEMBER @21WIRE.TV
VISIT OUR TELEGRAM CHANNEL
Click this link for the original source of this article.
Author: Global Affairs
This content is courtesy of, and owned and copyrighted by, https://21stcenturywire.com and its author. This content is made available by use of the public RSS feed offered by the host site and is used for educational purposes only. If you are the author or represent the host site and would like this content removed now and in the future, please contact USSANews.com using the email address in the Contact page found in the website menu.
