The US on Wednesday imposed sanctions on Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur for Palestine, marking a historic first against a UN expert.
The sanctions follow Albanese’s scathing report on 30 June in which she named over 60 companies, including major US technology firms like Google, Amazon and Microsoft, which she said were involved in “the transformation of Israel’s economy of occupation to an economy of genocide”.
The report called for the International Criminal Court and national judicial systems to pursue investigations and prosecutions of corporate executives and companies. It also called on United Nations member states to pursue sanctions and asset freezes.
“Today I am imposing sanctions on UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese for her illegitimate and shameful efforts to prompt @IntlCrimCourt action against US and Israeli officials, companies, and executives,” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement on X on Wednesday.
“Albanese’s campaign of political and economic warfare against the United States and Israel will no longer be tolerated. We will always stand by our partners in their right to self-defense,” Rubio added.
The sanctions will freeze any assets Albanese has in the US and would likely restrict her ability to travel to the US.
Albanese is an Italian citizen. If the sanctions are fully enforced, they could also prohibit her from engaging in financial transactions within the European Union.
US sanctions carry weight because the US can impose secondary sanctions on entities, such as banks or financial institutions, which conduct transactions with the sanctioned individual. Unlike Iran or North Korea, the EU is deeply wired into the US economy.
In a subsequent statement, Rubio said Albanese was engaging in “economic warfare” against the US.
Rubio said Albanese had written “threatening letters to dozens of entities worldwide, including major American companies across finance, technology, defense, energy, and hospitality, making extreme and unfounded accusations and recommending the ICC pursue investigations and prosecutions of these companies and their executives”.
Fellow UN experts denounced the sanctions as a dangerous precedent aimed at deterring experts from their human rights work.
“Sanctioning or otherwise threatening or attacking rapporteurs is beyond the pale, especially for countries which purport to uphold a rules-based international order and consider themselves champions of human rights,” Balakrishnan Rajagopal, the UN’s special rapporteur on the right to housing told Middle East Eye.
“Rapporteurs are independent experts who do their jobs pro bono and need support for their critical work. I urge immediate reversal of such sanctions. If allowed to stand, such sanctions send a chilling message: that any attempt to uphold law and speak truthfully will be met by a crackdown.”
Ben Saul, the UN special rapporteur on the protection of human rights while countering terrorism, said the sanctions decision “undermines accountability for violations of international law and promotes impunity.
“It also aims to deter others from defending human rights.”
“I condemn US retaliation against Francesca Albanese for her legitimate work in defence of Palestinian human rights,” he told MEE.
‘Getting rich out of genocide’
In a forthcoming exclusive interview with Middle East Eye, Albanese slammed US and European companies that she said were profiting off of Israel’s war on Gaza.
“It’s not the Israelis [who] are getting rich out of the genocide, it is that there are corporations, and there is an oligarchy connected to the defence industry, including in Europe and in the US, getting rich out of the genocide,” she told MEE.
The report did not focus solely on US-domiciled companies but included Caterpillar, Airbnb, and Lockheed Martin. South Korea’s HD Hyundai, Sweden’s Volvo Group, France’s BNP Paribas and the UK’s Barclays were also listed.
The sanctions announcement coincides with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to Washington, DC this week. Rubio and Netanyahu met on Wednesday.
One US official who spoke with MEE after the sanctions were announced called the move “in keeping with the administration’s policies”, saying it had been expected.
Albanese has emerged as one of the most prominent UN officials to criticise Israel’s war on Gaza, which she has labelled a genocide against Palestinians.
She has also levelled broadsides against the policies of US President Donald Trump, particularly his plan announced in early February to take over the Gaza Strip and forcibly displace Palestinians.
The US, earlier this month, requested that the UN remove Albanese from her post.