Profiles

Francesca Albanese: UNHRC Special Rapporteur for Palestine

A high-profile UN critic of Israel’s conduct in Gaza, this Italian scholar has now called for big corporations helping Israel to be investigated for war crimes. The US response? Sanctions. Who is she?

United Nations Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur on Palestine Francesca Albanese
Yusra Naim
United Nations Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur on Palestine Francesca Albanese

Francesca Albanese: UNHRC Special Rapporteur for Palestine

Con Coughlin
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In a sign of the deepening friction between the Trump administration and UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) official Francesca Albanese, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has announced new sanctions against one of Israel’s highest profile critics. In response to Albanese’s continued criticism of Israel’s offensive in Gaza, Rubio said she was waging a “campaign of political and economic warfare against the United States and Israel.” For Trump and his team, Albanese is bad news.

The latest move comes after the 48-year-old Italian human rights expert, who is the UNHRC’s Special Rapporteur for Palestine, called for the International Criminal Court (ICC) “to investigate and prosecute corporate executives and/or corporate entities” over alleged war crimes perpetrated by Israel in its war with Hamas in Gaza.

In a report published last week, titled From Economy of Occupation to Economy of Genocide, Albanese identified 48 corporate actors, from weapons manufacturers to financial companies. Big tech firms such as Microsoft, Alphabet (which owns Google) and Amazon were all listed. The report said some of these 48 firms were helping Israel displace Palestinians in breach of international law and profiting from their cooperation with the Israeli government.

Specially designated

In response to her latest report, the US Treasury imposed sanctions on Albanese under Executive Order 14203, listing her as a “specially designated national”, thus forbidding all US persons and companies from doing business with her. At the same time, the US State Department (headed by Rubio) called out her “shameful promotion” of action by the ICC against the US and Israel.

Luis Acosta/AFP
Francesca Albanese (R) with Palestinian Ambassador to the United Nations Riyad Mansour at a conference in Bogota on July 15, 2025.

The move means that any assets Albanese had in the US will be frozen and her ability to travel to America will likely be restricted. “The United States will continue to take whatever actions we deem necessary to respond to lawfare and protect our sovereignty and that of our allies,” Rubio said. Earlier this year, the US Department of Justice’s Task Force to Combat Antisemitism called on the UN to remove Albanese from her post, citing her “silence and selective outrage”.

Her report says some firms are helping Israel displace Palestinians in breach of international law and profiting from their cooperation with the Israeli government

Appointed to her current role in 2022, this Italian legal scholar who once studied in London has called for sanctions and an arms embargo against Israel since its full-scale invasion of the Gaza Strip in October 2023. The Israeli government banned her from the country in February 2024 after she said the victims of the 7 October massacre in southern Israel "were not murdered because of their Jewishness, but in response to Israeli oppression".

Not being silenced

Far from being overawed, Albanese directly addressed the latest US sanctions in Colombia this week, at a two-day gathering in Bogotá, which included China, Spain, and Qatar. "These attacks shall not be seen as against me personally," she said. "They are a warning to everyone who dares defend international justice and freedom. But we cannot afford to be silenced, and I know I am not alone. This is not about me or any other single individuals, but about justice for the Palestinian people at the most critical juncture in their history."

She described the 30-nation conference aimed at ending Israel's occupation of Palestine as "the most significant political development in the past 20 months," as delegates sought to set out steps they could take to implement a UN General Assembly motion mandating member-states to take measures in support of Israel ending its unlawful occupation of Palestine. The motion set a deadline of September 2025 to implement a July 2024 International Court of Justice advisory opinion that Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories was unlawful.

Luis Acosta/AFP
People protest against the war in Gaza outside San Carlos Palace in Bogota on July 16, 2025, where a 30-nation conference was taking place.

The gathering comes as the European Union weighs various measures against Israel, including a ban on imports from illegal Israeli settlements, an arms embargo, and individual sanctions against Israeli officials who are found to be blocking a peaceful solution to the conflict. In all these discussion, Albanese's comments and findings are key to the arguments.

Mandate renewed

First appointed on 1 May 2022 for a three-year term, she recently received a fresh mandate when this was renewed for another three years. The first woman to hold the position, she holds a law degree from the University of Pisa, and a master's degree in human rights from SOAS University of London.

She is an Affiliate Scholar at the Institute for the Study of International Migration at Georgetown University, a senior advisor on Migration and Forced Displacement at the non-profit Arab Renaissance for Democracy and Development, and teaches a course she designed herself on "humanitarian, legal and political responses to the Palestinian forced displacement" as a non-resident professor at a number of universities, including in Bethlehem, Birzeit and Salento.

These attacks shall not be seen as against me personally. They are a warning to everyone who dares defend international justice and freedom

Francesca Albanese, addressing US sanctions against her

Albanese has held several UN positions during her career, including at the UN Development Programme in Morocco and as a human rights officer with the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Morocco. Whilst she has been a Special Rapporteur, Albanese has criticised Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories, recommending in her first report that UN member states develop a plan to end the occupation and apartheid.

Calling it 'genocide'

After the Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip at the end of 2023, Albanese called for an immediate ceasefire and warned that Palestinians in Gaza were at risk of ethnic cleansing. On 26 March 2024, she reported to the UNHRC that Israel's actions in Gaza amounted to genocide.

Salvatore Di Nolfi/Keystone via AP
UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur on Palestine Francesca Albanese in Geneva on 11 July 2023.

Critics accuse her of antisemitism and an anti-Israel bias, but several human rights groups and numerous scholars of antisemitism say these are illegitimate attempts to discredit her. Richard Falk, UN Special Rapporteur on Occupied Palestine from 2008 to 2014, even said Albanese "deserves the Nobel Peace Prize, not US punitive pushback by way of targeted sanctions denying her entry and freezing assets".

Awarding her such a prestigious accolade, one that Trump himself is said to want above all else, would be guaranteed to inflame tensions even further between the White House and the UN's highly critical representative of the Palestinian cause. There is every chance that this may only embolden her.

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