Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, has become one of the most influential, and controversial, voices in global human rights discourse. An Italian international lawyer appointed in 2022, Albanese has positioned herself at the forefront of international legal scrutiny over Israel’s conduct in Gaza. Her reports, grounded in humanitarian and international law, have consistently challenged the mainstream narratives upheld by Western governments. As the Gaza war grinds through its second year, Albanese has emerged not merely as a monitor, but as a forceful advocate for accountability, naming states, corporations, and institutions she believes are complicit in what she bluntly calls a genocidal campaign.

Her March 2024 report to the UN Human Rights Council marked a turning point. Titled “Anatomy of a Genocide,” the report concluded there were reasonable grounds to believe that Israel had committed acts constituting genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza. She outlined three of the five legally defined genocidal acts under the 1948 Genocide Convention: the killing of group members, the infliction of serious bodily or mental harm, and the deliberate imposition of conditions calculated to bring about physical destruction. At the time of her report, more than 32,000 Palestinians had been killed, including over 13,000 children. Thousands more were presumed dead under rubble. The report accused Israel not only of disproportionate military action, but of implementing a systematic campaign to make Gaza uninhabitable.

The reaction was explosive. Israeli officials condemned the report as biased and dangerous. U.S. officials accused her of ignoring the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, which triggered Israel’s full-scale assault on Gaza, but Albanese had not ignored them. She acknowledged the attacks and the killing of Israeli civilians, calling for accountability for all war crimes. Her argument, however, centered on the scope and scale of Israel’s response, one she argued had moved far beyond self-defense into collective punishment and mass destruction. She called for arms embargoes, sanctions, and referrals to the International Criminal Court.

In July 2025, Albanese issued another report that further intensified international debate. This time, she focused on the role of private industry in sustaining the Gaza war. The 27-page document named over sixty multinational corporations allegedly involved in arming or profiting from the Israeli military campaign. Among them were Lockheed Martin, Elbit Systems, Caterpillar, Palantir, Microsoft, and Alphabet. Albanese argued that the war was not just politically and ideologically driven, but economically sustained a “lucrative genocidal campaign” in her words. She asserted that private military and surveillance industries were supplying the tools of destruction in Gaza, enabling and profiting from the ongoing devastation of Palestinian civilian life.

The U.S. government, under President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, responded swiftly. In early July 2025, Albanese became the target of sanctions under the Global Magnitsky Act. Her U.S. assets were frozen, her entry into the United States banned, and she was publicly accused of antisemitism and abuse of her UN mandate. The sanctions were unprecedented. Never before had a UN Special Rapporteur been personally sanctioned by a Security Council member state. Rubio framed the action as a necessary response to what he called her “campaign of political warfare against Israel.”

International condemnation followed. UN officials, the European Union, and rights organizations including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch decried the move as a direct assault on the independence of UN experts. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights reminded member states that Rapporteurs operate under strict mandates and do not represent the UN’s institutional voice, but contribute independent expertise essential to global governance. Amnesty International called the sanctions “a disgrace to international justice,” warning they would have a chilling effect on future investigations of powerful states. Albanese herself called the measures “obscene,” arguing they were designed to silence her work and shield Israel and its allies from legal scrutiny.

At the core of Albanese’s work is a consistent demand for equal application of international law. She insists that rights and protections cannot be selectively applied based on alliances or geopolitical convenience. In doing so, she has tapped into a growing current of frustration, particularly in the Global South, where the credibility of Western-led institutions is seen as deeply compromised. Her reports have become essential reading for legal scholars, policymakers, and activists seeking to understand not only the Gaza conflict, but also the broader erosion of global legal norms.

Francesca Albanese is not neutral, nor does she pretend to be. Her work takes a moral stance, grounded in legal analysis and human rights doctrine. It is that very combination, rigorous documentation and unapologetic condemnation, that has made her one of the most important, and most polarizing, figures in the debate over Gaza. She has forced the international community to confront uncomfortable truths, not only about war, but about complicity, silence, and profit.

Sources:
• https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/lucrative-business-deals-help-sustain-israels-gaza-campaign-un-expert-says-2025-07-01
• https://www.apnews.com/article/e74d283c8cb9c1a61eec61a22ce62dc0
• https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/7/10/un-expert-albanese-rejects-obscene-us-sanctions-for-criticising-israel
• https://www.un.org/unispal/document/states-must-adhere-to-obligations-under-genocide-convention-francesca-albanese-ohchr-pr-26mar24
• https://www.amnesty.org.au/usa-sanctions-against-francesca-albanese-are-disgrace-t-international-justice
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_inauguration_of_Donald_Trump