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Two weeks after the United States imposed sanctions against Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), the UN has invoked her immunity and called on the US to remove the sanctions against her.
On July 9, 2025, the US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, imposed sanctions against Albanese, citing oral and written statements she made in her official role within the UN mandate entrusted to her by the UN Human Rights Council. As a result, Albanese is now banned from traveling to the US and any property or other assets she has in the country or its banks may be frozen. The same sanctions may apply to her immediate family members.
On the same day that Rubio designated Albanese for US sanctions, Stéphane Dujarric, the UN spokesperson, said that the imposition of sanctions on UN special rapporteurs is “unacceptable” and sets a “dangerous precedent.” Volker Turk, the UN high commissioner for human rights, urged the US to reverse the sanctions and said that the attacks and threats against Albanese and other Human Rights Council mandate-holders “must stop.”
Ambassador Juerg Lauber, the president of the Council, emphasized that special rapporteurs “are an essential instrument of the Council in fulfilling its mandate to promote and protect all human rights worldwide” and called on all UN member states “to refrain from any acts of intimidation or reprisal against them.”
While UN Secretary-General António Guterres himself has not said anything publicly about the sanctions, the UN Legal Counsel, on behalf of the secretary-general, wrote to the US Mission to the UN last week, asserting Albanese’s official UN mandate and maintaining her UN privileges and immunities.
Pursuant to the Convention on Privileges and Immunities of the UN, Albanese enjoys the status of a UN expert on mission and is accorded the privileges and immunities “necessary for the independent exercise” of her UN functions. In particular, she enjoys “immunity from legal process of every kind,” including from the US sanctions.
Like all other UN human rights special rapporteurs, Albanese is not paid for her service. Her immunity from legal process is purely functional and applies only “in respect of words spoken or written and acts done” in the course of her work. The immunity is granted “in the interests of the United Nations” and not for her personal benefit.
In Rubio’s letter of July 9, 2025, designating Albanese for US sanctions, he cites her support for the International Criminal Court (ICC) and her advocacy for criminal accountability for the war crimes and crimes against humanity being committed in Gaza and other parts of the OPT.
According to Rubio, Albanese had recommended “without a legitimate basis” that the ICC issue arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant whom the US has defined as protected persons pursuant to Executive Order (EO) 14203 issued by President Donald Trump in February 2025.
More than a year ago, in May 2024, the prosecutor of the ICC, Karim Khan, had requested arrest warrants against Hamas leadersand Israeli leaders for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity. Khan was advised by a distinguished panel of legal experts, including an Israeli — Judge Theodor Meron. Albanese was not a member of the panel.
Far from lacking legitimacy, as Rubio alleged, the panel assessed that “there are reasonable grounds to believe” that Netanyahu and Gallant are responsible for the crimes they are alleged to have committed.
The ICC issued the requested warrants in November 2024. The court has terminated the cases against the Hamas leaders as they have all been assassinated by Israeli forces. The charges against Netanyahu and Gallant are proceeding; they include using starvation as a method of warfare; intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population; and committing murder, persecution and other inhumane acts.
In his designation letter, Rubio also accused Albanese of “writing threatening letters to dozens of entities worldwide, including major American companies . . . and recommending the ICC pursue investigations and prosecutions of these companies and their executives.”
She had, in fact, written to these entities warning them of their potential liability for their complicity in what the International Court of Justice had deemed a plausible genocide in Gaza and an unlawful occupation of the entire OPT. She then issued a reportdetailing how these entities have “profited from Israel’s illegal occupation, its brutal system of apartheid and its ongoing genocide in Gaza.”
Albanese has been serving as UN special rapporteur since May 2022; signaling its approval of her work, the Human Rights Council renewed her for another three-year term in April 2025 — with overwhelming support from UN member states.
Albanese has consistently condemned all violence against civilians — Israeli civilians and Palestinian civilians. Given the duration and magnitude of Israel’s mass atrocities in Gaza and the surge in Israeli settler violence in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, Albanese’s courageous, undaunted defense of Palestinian lives and rights has resonated throughout the world.
The ICC prosecutor was the first to be sanctioned, pursuant to Executive Order 14203 on June 5, followed by four ICC judges on June 6 and most recently Albanese on July 9. It is highly unlikely that the Trump administration will remove any of them from the sanctions list. However, while Guterres has no responsibility for or authority over the ICC prosecutor and judges, he is duty bound to defend Albanese’s mandate as a UN expert on mission and to uphold her UN immunity from any and all legal process.
Guterres, who has already been declared persona non grata by Israel, and the UN — which is struggling from US budget cuts — will soon face yet another difficult decision: risk further Israeli and American retaliation or protect UN mandates and UN mandate-holders.
Regardless of his fears of retaliation, legitimate as they may be, Guterres must speak up and, if necessary, stand up for UN mandates and UN mandate-holders, including Albanese. She is entitled to the protection of the UN and its secretary-general.
In two previous cases involving the immunity from legal process of UN human rights special rapporteurs, the International Court of Justice confirmed that the secretary-general has the primary responsibility and authority to determine whether such experts are acting within the scope of their functions and, where he so concludes, to protect them by asserting their immunity.
Dumitru Mazilu and Dato’ Param Cumaraswamy faced national legal process arising from their work as UN special rapporteurs in their own countries — Romania and Malaysia, respectively. When those governments failed to respect the UN immunity, Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar spoke up for Mazilu, and Secretary-General Kofi Annan spoke up for Cumaraswamy in the UN Economic and Social Council. After the Council sought an advisory opinion from the ICJ, they stood up for them in the world court.
Albanese is Italian, not American; as such, the US sanctions against her represent an even more extreme violation of the UN Convention, and as the UN spokesperson rightly noted, they set a “dangerous precedent” not only for Albanese as a UN expert but also for the UN itself.
A dispute between the UN and the US seems inevitable. The secretary-general will have to speak up for Albanese in the General Assembly; should the Assembly agree to request the ICJ’s advisory opinion, he and the UN Legal Counsel will have to stand up for her in the world court.
Like Albanese, Guterres and the UN Legal Counsel will undoubtedly face serious threats and immense pressure from the US and Israel.
One can only hope that they will perform their duty with the same courage of conviction that Albanese is performing hers.