Trump sanctions on UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese illegal, further complicity in genocide
UN rapporteur on Palestine, Francesca Albanese, speaks during the opening of the Hague Group summit in Bogota, 15 July 2025
Craig Mokhiber writes on Mondoweiss on 10 July 2025:
Fresh from face-to-face meetings in Washington with fugitive from justice Benjamin Netanyahu, indicted by the ICC for crimes against humanity, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio took the extraordinary step of declaring sanctions against the United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, Francesca Albanese.
The announcement was accompanied by a flurry of false and defamatory statements by Rubio attacking Albanese, further demonstrating the lengths to which the Trump administration (and the Israel proxies empowered within it) are willing to go to buttress the impunity of the Israeli regime.
Rubio’s lawless action has been condemned and rejected by international organizations, experts, and human rights defenders across the globe as a moral outrage.
Indeed, outside of Washington (and the Israel lobby groups that hold dangerous sway there), Rubio’s smears and his lawless imposition of sanctions will bring only condemnation of Rubio and the Trump administration. Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese is a highly respected expert and human rights defender, well known globally as an advocate who has dedicated her life to opposing all forms of bigotry and oppression and to promoting the cause of universal human rights.
She has been widely praised for carrying out her United Nations mandate with honor and with the highest degree of competence and integrity, particularly during the Israeli regime’s twenty months of genocide in Palestine.
But this action by the U.S. government is not only a moral outrage. It is also entirely unlawful. The sanctions order and its accompanying statements are a direct breach of the United Nations Charter, the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations, and the Agreement Regarding the Headquarters of the United Nations (Host Country Agreement).