Sanctioning Francesca Albanese Marco Rubio Tramples on Law, Justice, and Truth

EDITORIAL, 21 Jul 2025

#908 | Richard Falk – TRANSCEND Media Service

Justifying US Sanctions

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in a dazzling Orwellian display, inverted reality by slapping sanctions on Francesca Albanese, the much-embattled UN Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories of East Jerusalem, West Bank, and Gaza. If the sanctions are implemented against this extraordinary citizen of Italy, in the face of strong UN objections, Albanese will be barred from entering the US, presumably even to discharge her annual UN duty to present a report to the Third Committee of the General Assembly. Additionally, as a vindictive feature of the sanctions, whatever US financial assets she or her immediate family happens to possess, including real state, will be frozen. It is relevant to take notice of the facts that not only is Francesca Albanese a non-citizen, but she is the first UN unpaid officeholder to be sanctioned and also happens to be the first woman to be named UN Special Rapporteur of Occupied Palestine.

Relying on an earlier Trump Executive Order 14203 (“Imposing Sanctions on the International Criminal Court”), which is a stretch when it comes to the SR role specified by Albanese’s mandate, Rubio resorts to this malicious lawfare ploy to connect her with an analogous sanctions imposed this February on five members of the ICC for their involvement in the issuance of arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli former Minister Defense, Yoav Gallant. The only link between the ICC and Albanese derives from her most recent SR report that explores the connections between the profits earned by some 60 named corporations in the US and European defense sectors and her carefully documented allegations of Israel’s criminal responsibility for genocide in Gaza. The recommendation in her report to the UN urging an investigations and indictments by the ICC of these corporations provides the grounds on which to accuse Albanese of waging ‘economic warfare’ against the US and Israel. As might be expected, big tech and arms dealers are presumed to have exerted their own insider pressures for the US to strike back, and strike it has.

Anyone familiar with the vicious Israeli campaign against Albanese since her appointment in 2022, fully seconded by the US and Zionist-funded NGOs (UN Watch, NGO Monitor), will jump to the plausible conclusion that these objecting countries were waiting for just such a setting to take punitive action against this fearless scholar and passionate advocate of human rights for the Palestinian people. Rubio acknowledges as much when he departs from the technical rationale for sanctions, giving voice to the deeper roots of US hostility to Albanese. Rubio’s words read as if scripted by the most militant of AIPAC or loyalists: “The United States has repeatedly condemned and objected to biased and malicious activities of Albanese that have long made her unfit for service as a Special Rapporteur.” His statement goes on falsely contending that “Albanese has spewed antisemitism, expressed support for terrorism, and open contempt for the United States, Israel, and the West.” Hardly a word of this defaming allegation is true beyond the possible, principled exception of the ‘open contempt’ phrase. What seems relevant is that the sanctions were imposed days after the release of Albanese’s report that focused on corporate complicity with Israel’s criminality in Gaza in which a series of prominent corporations that profited from supplying weapons and other military equipment to Israel facilitating the genocide. Rubio’s formal statement signaled the policy context by the unusual reference to ‘economic’ as well as ‘political’ interests.

Background of Attacks on Albanese

The last three Special Rapporteurs on Palestine, of which I was one, were each subjected to harsh pushbacks in the form of character assassinations, death threats, and smears. These were similar unseemly tactics to what Albanese experienced during her three years of SR service prior to the July 9 sanctions. We earlier SRs were much less visible and influential than Albanese, in part due to her public prominence and even more to her well- documented confirmation of what the West dismissed as inflammatory genocide accusations. As her fearless and persuasive critical assessments of Israel’s criminality began gaining growing credibility at odds with the mainstream news cycle upholding the legitimacy of Israel’s response to a totally misleading decontextualized account of October 7 she became a prime target of government and societal diehard supporters of Israel. So when her last report named leading defense industry companies, and recommended ICC investigations and prosecutions it was apparently the last straw for the US foreign policy establishment.

I will not claim any credentials, but my predecessor, John Dugard, and my successor, Michael Lynk, were world class jurists, whose views on international law issues were widely solicited and impressively influential long before they became UN SRs and have continued to garner respect years after their SR terms expired. This Israeli tactic of attacking the credibility of the messenger instead of addressing the message seemed to commence in the 2005-2010 period. Although not acknowledged by either Israel or its European and North American supporters this tactic appeared perversely responsive to the overwhelming evidence of pervasive and unmistable Israeli violations of international humanitarian law in their administrative occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Israel’s core duty as embedded in the 4^th Geneva Convention on Belligerent Occupation was daily being violated. This widely ratified treaty specified the obligations of an Occupying State to uphold the safety, security, needs, and interests of an occupied people. Among the most serious violations was the encouragement of Jewish settlements throughout the West Bank a fundamental breach of international humanitarian law that doomed peacemaking ventures, especially the viability of any durable two-state solution that is not a Bantustan buyoff. It also gave rise to the strong suspicion, later confirmed, that the Zionist Project coveted not only East Jerusalem, which was the unlawfully incorporated into Israel after the 1967 War, and proclaimed to be Israel’s eternal capital but also the West Bank as part of ‘the promised land’ by which Jewish traditions and the Zionist movement justified the Orientalist displacement of resident Palestinians encroached upon without being given any opportunity to approve or disapprove, an unabashed denial of the inalienable Palestinian right of self-determination.

To deflect attention from its reliance on lawless behavior and baseless claims, Israel chose in the last twenty years to go after Special Rapporteurs and prominent critics by recourse to launching personal attacks rather than by addressing substantive criticisms through the assertion of counterarguments. The centerpiece of this strategy defamation and deflection came to be identified as ‘the weaponization of antisemitism,’ further manipulated by reliance on the influential polemical IHRA definition of antisemitism. Criticisms of Israel’s behavior, including of its practices of ethnic cleansing and its Knesset enactment of a Basic Law in 2018 of Jewish supremist ideology. Critical reactions by UNSRs and others were scornfully repudiated by Israel. These unpaid UN officials being derided oblivious to their actual views as the purveyors of hatred toward Jews. The US joined Israel in mounting an intensifying campaign within the UN to eliminate the SR Mandate for Occupied Palestine. In this pushback against Israel’s critics, accusations were invariably directed at individuals who had strong reputations as strengthening human rights and had no animosity whatsoever to Jews or other minorities as persons or as a people. These smearing tactics were intended to harm professional reputations and to be emotionally hurtful. The broader goals of these hate-mongering campaigns were to create toxic intimidating consequences for anyone who dared cross these outrageous red lines drawn to shield Israeli criminality from critical scrutiny. These discrediting attacks have proved alarmingly effective over the years in diverting attention from Israeli wrongdoing, sowing doubts either cynically or by playing havoc with a naive citizenry and a self-censoring media that treated folklore maxims as if societal verities: ‘where there is smoke there must be fire.’

No one has endured more unwarranted hate and received more deserved admiration along these lines than Francesca Albanese. She has heroically persevered in offering the world an entirely objective and persuasive analysis of Israel’s prolonged, transparent, and cruel genocidal assault against the civilian population of Gaza

Exposing the Genocidal Narrative of Alleged Retaliation

It is against this background, knowingly or pragmatically indulged by Western governments and influential corporatized media platforms, that brought Albanese under fierce attack from the moment she was appointed SR by the UN. After October 7, 2025 when the Israeli response in Gaza assumed from its outset a genocidal quality, Albanese rose to the challenge of the UN mandate by naming the massive high tech violence against Gaza as ‘genocide’ when the mainstream mobilized to keep the debate about whether Israel was winning in gaining its public goal of exterminating Hamas and treated the g-word as an obscenity to be banned, if used to be punished. Albanese showed that this morally depraved refusal to call a spade a spade was politically enabled by the prior dehumanization of the Palestinians. Her periodic reports to the UN brilliantly analyzed genocide as embedded in the Zionist version of ‘settler colonialism,’ the essence of which consisted of persecuting Palestinians as strangers in their own homeland. She was energetic and effective in disseminating these provocative findings and allegations, building a global reputation unlike any previous Special Rapporteur across the spectrum of no less than 58 thematic and country mandates established over the years by the UN Human Rights Council. However fierce, intimidating, and unfair these attacks on her SR performance, Albanese courageously did not bend to the pressures mounted against her, which seemed to further frustrate and incense her vengeful adversaries in Israel and the United States. They could not quiet her voice or divert her message, no matter the fury of the insults or threats, including from pro-Zionist activists spread around the Global West. It is unlikely that the imposition of US sanctions, however punitive, will overcome these past strenuous efforts to silence Albanese’s eloquent global voice of conscience fortified by deep knowledge of what she speaks, and a devoted worldwide constituency of support.

The Larger Stakes

More than Albanese’s reputation and ability to carry out the duties of Special Rapporteur is at stake in this struggle. National sanctions imposed by the host country of the UN violates two important international treaties designed to balance state sovereignty against UN effectiveness and independence. [International Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the UN; Host Country Agreement]. The US has repeatedly refused to be bound by international law and morality when these normative imperatives clash with strategic interest in shielding allies from criticism and censure. It also slams the door on the integrity of unpaid civil servants who enjoy a reputation for exceptional performance as is the case with Albanese. All members of the UN are of course fully entitled and expected to express disagreement with the views and recommendations of an SR, hopefully in a responsible manner. It is quite another matter to join a campaign of slander and villification without the slightest effort to engage the well documented arguments of an experienced and highly respected human rights defender and international law scholar of Albanese’s stature. Worse yet, the US Government is joining Israel in reinforcing slanderous attacks by punitive action that intentionally interferes with the performance of an elected and appointed UN official selected by the 47 elected member states serving staggered and regionally distributed three-year terms as members of the Human Rights Council. SR candidates are subject to an elaborate vetting process that include a review of qualifications and an interview that develops the case for  recommendations by a committee of UN diplomats who evaluate a large pool of applicants. The top candidates are shortlisted for review by the President of the HRC who passes on his recommendations to the Assembly of UN member that must then endorse the SR nominee by a consensus vote (interpreted as registering no negative votes) among members states of the HRC. To impose sanctions on such a UN appointee due to disagreements with her assessment of a controversial situation is to weaken the influence of this vital UN institution and discourage qualified persons from subjecting themselves to unseemly reprisals for performative integrity. It is also a terrible precedent, overriding the objective reportage of the most severe violations of international law by deferring to strongarmed geopolitics.

Albanese’s central allegations of genocide and disruptive Israeli interference with the international delivery of humanitarian aid for the desperately deprived civilian population of Gaza were in harmony with the near unanimous interim measures ruled upon in early 2024 by the ICJ, and brazenly defied by Israel. The ICJ judgment although provisional was widely admired across the world as an exercise of judicial independence, exhibiting the professionalism of its judges. This included the American judge, Sarah Cleveland, who sided with the South African request for interim relief from the devastation being wrought by the relentless military assault as did the judges from Israel-supporting Germany and Australia. Because of the drawn-out procedures of the ICJ, including delays in the proceedings granted to Israel, it may be several years before this judicial body renders a final judgment on these central questions, and even then, in a decision constrained by conservative judicial practice far more than are SR reports.

In this sense, the establishment of the position of Special Rapporteur was a brilliant innovation in UN procedures, enabling responsive and expeditious reporting by 44 SRs on a variety of international themes ranging from the rights of free expression to abusive treatment of women, as well as 14 country SRs in national situations deemed deserving of attention. The SR on Israeli violation of human rights in Palestinian Territories occupied after 1967 was established in 1993, and has been subject to Israeli and US objections ever since its inception. Despite such opposition this UN position has steadily gained influence, prestige, and media respect. Its prominence reached a peak during the first three-year term of Albanese’s tenure, now extended over objections from the usual sources as is in keeping with usual practice for a second and final second three years. Her reports were invaluable sources of trustworthy and well-researched assessments of an international controversy that increasingly pitted the West against the rest. Thirty years ago, Samuel Huntington predicted a turbulent sequel to the end of the Cold War in the form of ‘a clash of civilizations,’ and only a few would doubt that it has come to pass victimizing not only Palestinians but those who come vigorously to their defense.

Albanese surmounted this contentious political atmosphere with reason, knowledge, and a lifelong dedication to international law and human rights under the most difficult of circumstances. Instead of being sanctioned and maligned by the US Government, Francesca Albanese is now honored by heading the line of nominees waiting to receive the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize. If Americans were living in a democratic and peace minded country our President would insist on the resignation of Marco Rubio for his shamefully ill-considered act of overreach. It would be a dramatic show of national support for internationalism even when it goes against US foreign policy. This currently inconceivable double outcome of honor for Albanese and infamy for Rubio could have strengthened the UN and recognized civil society contributions by engaged citizens the world over who are devoted to justice and peace, and above all, render service to weak and vulnerable targets of ethnic prejudice currently epitomized by the ordeal of the Palestinian people climaxing over the course of the last six months by the Gaza genocide, spilling over in recent weeks to the West Bank.

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Prof. Richard Falk is a member of the TRANSCEND Network, Albert G. Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University, Chair of Global Law, Faculty of Law, at Queen Mary University London, Research Associate the Orfalea Center of Global Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Fellow of the Tellus Institute. He directed the project on Global Climate Change, Human Security, and Democracy at UCSB and formerly served as director the North American group in the World Order Models Project. Between 2008 and 2014, Falk served as UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Occupied Palestine. His book, (Re)Imagining Humane Global Governance (2014), proposes a value-oriented assessment of world order and future trends. His most recent books are Power Shift (2016); Revisiting the Vietnam War (2017); On Nuclear Weapons: Denuclearization, Demilitarization and Disarmament (2019); and On Public Imagination: A Political & Ethical Imperative, ed. with Victor Faessel & Michael Curtin (2019). He is the author or coauthor of other books, including Religion and Humane Global Governance (2001), Explorations at the Edge of Time (1993), Revolutionaries and Functionaries (1988), The Promise of World Order (1988), Indefensible Weapons (with Robert Jay Lifton, 1983), A Study of Future Worlds (1975), and This Endangered Planet (1972). His memoir, Public Intellectual: The Life of a Citizen Pilgrim was published in March 2021 and received an award from Global Policy Institute at Loyala Marymount University as ‘the best book of 2021.’ He has been nominated frequently for the Nobel Peace Prize since 2009.

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This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 21 Jul 2025.

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One Response to “Sanctioning Francesca Albanese Marco Rubio Tramples on Law, Justice, and Truth”

1. Hoosen Vawda says:

   21 Jul 2025 at 20:11

   Dear Emeritus Professor Richard Falk, I write this brief comment, as a third generation, South African, person of Indian Origin, who grew up in the “Heydays of Grand Apartheid”, to congratulate you on highlighting, the not so shameful, but most despicable iterations of the US Secretary of State, the “Honourable” Marco Rubio, for his shamefully ill-considered act of overreach against the special UN rapporteur Francesca Albanese, imposing severe sanctions against her and her husband. This was executed, all on the basis of exposing the truth about the hegemonic rampages of Israel, which is effectively a state of US.
   While you highlight the challenges most effectively, honouring Francesca with a Nobel Prize, is not going to solve the ultimate neo-imperialism of Israel. Something more must be done, noting that UN and ICJ are toothless alligators, in the international scenario of their protective mandate. Effectively, I cannot see any further avenues to channel complaints about the brazen transgressions by Israel, with Britain, Germany and of course, “His Master’s Voice”, the US, complicit in the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the Occupied West Bank, as we all have observed. I also compliment Professor Falk on highlighting BDS’s. eternal anti-Israel, boycott odyssey, which in my opinion has had no major societal nor political impact, even here is South Africa.
   I wish you well and trust that Professor Richard Falk, can come up with some novel measure of solid deterrence against Israel. Thank you, Take care. Hoosen Vawda, Global: +27 82 291 4546

   Reply