US attacks on UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese are the latest bullying tactics by a country complicit in war crimes and crimes against humanity
16th July 2025- On 9th July 2025, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio introduced sanctions against the UN Special Rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese. The sanctions were introduced simply because she was fulfilling her mandate, and the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) utterly condemns the Orwellian move, which clearly violates her immunity as a UN Official.
This is simply the latest bullying tactic implemented by the United States against international institutions and actors that seek to apply international law and hold Israel accountable for war crimes and crimes against humanity.
UN Special Rapporteurs are independent human rights experts called upon by the United Nations (UN) to report or advise on human rights. It is unacceptable that a country would sanction these individuals for carrying out their mandate. It is even more unconscionable that a country would sanction such individuals who are seemingly revealing that government’s complicity in war crimes, crimes against humanity, and plausible genocide.
Indeed, in response to the sanctions, Francesca Albanese rightly said: “the powerful punishing those who speak for the powerless, it is not a sign of strength, but of guilt.” As well as ICJP, institutions such as the International Commission of Jurists have also called for the sanctions to be immediately rescinded.
Previously, the US sanctioned the International Criminal Court (ICC) on the 6th February 2025, due to the ICC issuing arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and ex-Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, on account of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
In May 2024, Israel faced accusations of a longstanding, coordinated campaign of spying, hacking and intimidating the ICC to derail war crimes, including threatening the former Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, which led to a joint letter by 93 UN countries calling for the ICC to be allowed to continue its work ‘without intimidation’.
The rise of political attacks against human rights-oriented institutions and individuals is a dangerous trend that not only seeks to obfuscate crimes, but poses an existential threat to the very fabric of the international rules-based order.
ENDS
Notes to Editors:
- ICJP is a legal organisation based in London, working to uphold international law and defend the rights of Palestinians.
- Allegations of Israeli intimidation of ICC can be read here, here, and here.
- The White House statement on the sanctioning of the ICC can be read here.
- The International Commission of Jurists’ statement can be read here.
- For more information or for media inquiries, please contact the ICJP news desk at press@icjpalestine.com.