Francesca Albanese is one of those very few figures whose influence in the world of international diplomacy and human rights has brought up a considerable share of controversy and debate. This Italian professor of law has been thrust into the international eye of a storm when she was appointed to act as United Nations Special Rapporteur in charge of the occupied Palestinian territories and it has led to unprecedented sanctions by the United States government in July 2025.
Who is Francesca Albanese?
Being born on the 30th of March 1977, at Ariano Irpino, Campania, Italy, Francesca P. Albanese is the representative of the new generation of international human rights activists. She has made a niche, using her unrivaled experience in international law and demography in migration studies, within the global human rights scene.
Albanese has an impressive academic qualification. She is a lawyer by education with honors at University of Pisa and has a Master of Laws in human rights at the highly reputable SOAS University in London. She has not only improved her educational background but also acted as an Affiliate Scholar at the Institute for the Study of International Migration at the Georgetown University.
It is not only the academic experience that makes Albanese unique, but her practicable experience in the field as well. She spent more than ten years as an expert in human rights with different UN agencies, namely UN Relief and Work Agency for Palestine Refugees and Office of the UN High Commissioner of Human Rights.
This practical base has provided her with an inside feel into the challenges that vulnerable groups are exposed to especially refugees and migrants in Middle East, North Africa and Asia Pacific Regions.
The ground-breaking UN Assignment
On 1 May 2022 Albanese became the first woman ever to be appointed as UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories. It became an important milestone in the UN history since this appointment was both, a three-year one and afterwards, it was once again part of the UN history because it was renewed into a three-year period. She was the second Italian to occupy such position after Giorgio Giacomelli.
The Special Rapporteur is a prestigious and at the same time a challenging position. These are independent practitioners, who are self styled, without pay, and the job of such is to monitor, report and advise on human rights in the areas assigned to that individual. In the case of Albanese, this entails monitoring the situation on human rights in the West Bank including East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.
She was not appointed without controversies. It was criticized because of what some people had said earlier in 2014 Gaza War when she criticized what she believes to be the bias of US and Europe towards Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
All these controversies early in her tenure would later turn out to be a foretaste of what she would go through all through her tenure.
Academic Contributions and Expertise
Outside UN, Albanese has built a reputation as a legitimate academic voice in the field of international law. Her academic contributions consist of co-authorship to “Palestinian Refugees in International Law” by Lex Takkenberg published by Oxford University press in 2020.
This extensive research proves how well-read she is both in the field of refugee and how the law applies to an already long-standing refugee crisis.
Her experience has been more than academic, but practical policy work. She has impacted policy debate on some of the most acute humanitarian questions of our time as a senior advisor on Migration and Forced Displacement of the non-profit Arab Renaissance for Democracy and Development (ARDD).
At ARDD, she was also the co-founder of the Global Network on the Question of Palestine showing that she lived to her promises of establishing institutional structures to advocate on the rights of Palestinians.
Albanese lectures frequently at European and Arab universities, on international law and forced displacement, passing her knowledge on to young generations of international lawyers and human rights defenders.
The Gaza War Reports Which Rocked the World
The most popular and controversial work by Albanese was on the Gaza conflict. In March 2024, she gave her report Anatomy of a Genocide to the 55th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva. This report was a breaking point in global argument of Gaza conflict.
Albanese in this detailed report provided what she termed as a justification she could call as a reasonable evidence that Israel was deliberately carrying out genocidal acts against the Palestinians in Gaza. Specifically, she outlined three areas of concern covered by the Genocide Convention as killing members of the group, causing of serious menial or mental harm to members of the group and the deliberate inflictions of conditions of life which are aimed at causing physical destruction.
The report did not just document but requested specific action to be taken such as sanction and an arms embargo. This was not merely intellectualized speculation; no, it was a clarion call heard all across the international community.
Her next report in June 2025 was more controversial still, as she directly named 48 corporations, leading companies including Microsoft, Alphabet Inc., Amazon, that she claimed were assisting Israel to drive out Palestinians in contravention of international law. In this report, the main argument was that genocide in Gaza was continuing since it was making big profits to these business corporations.
The unprecedented US Sanctions
The reaction on the reports of Albanese was rapid and unprecedented. On July 2025, United States Department of the Treasury sanctioned her under Executive Order 14203 as a specially designated national. This designation essentially banned all US person and companies transacting business with her and, as far as human rights officials of the UN were concerned, it was the first time that such sanctions were leveled against a human rights official.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio justified the sanctions by stating that “Albanese’s campaign of political and economic warfare against the United States and Israel will no longer be tolerated.” The Trump administration had previously sent a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in June 2025, calling for her removal as rapporteur, citing alleged terrorism support and antisemitism.
Albanese’s response to these sanctions was characteristically defiant. She called them “obscene” and argued that she was being punished for her “pursuit of justice.” This confrontation highlighted the tensions between national sovereignty and international human rights monitoring.
Support from the International Community
Although there has been an uproar over her work, Albanese has gained support by a lot of quarters within the international community. In December 2022, sixty five scholars of antisemitism, the Holocaust, and the study of Jews, characterized her work, and responded to the allegations against her as attacks on her free to report on human rights abuses.
Her mandate has continually been supported by several human rights organizations like the Amnesty International. On April 2023, Amnesty International Italy issued a letter of support signed by dozens of Italian rights groups, MPs, jurists, and academics. The organization later-on described the US sanctions as a disgrace to international justice.
Three of her predecessors, namely John Dugard, Richard Falk and Michael Lynk, issued joint statements urging the UN to defend her, labeling what happened to her as a case of “slanderous” and “ad hominem” attacks.
Francesca Albanese—Recognition and Awards
Some of the honors accorded to the work done by Albanese include prestigious awards. She was part of the journalistic coverage of Palestine and the Middle East in April 2023, when she was given the International Stefano Chiarini Award.
In 2024, she was named by the Passblue UN Person of the Year with an organization citing that she proved to be an excellent leader in the year 2024 to defend the UN Charter, to advocate the rights of all humans, to take action to fulfill international humanitarian law and to establish peace and nonviolence across the globe.
She was also awarded The Rights Forum, the Dries van Agt Prize in February 2025, which bestows honours upon individuals and organizations that demonstrate firm commitment to human rights and international law in Palestine.
The Private Price of Advocacy
It is risky being a high-profile human rights advocate at a personal level. On March 2025, Hillel who is a Jewish far-right group threatened Albanese with a pager attack in London, alluding to the 2024 pager attacks in Lebanon. These threats demonstrate the attempt of the poor environment that human rights activists work.
Having a husband, Massimiliano Calil, who is a member of the World Bank, and two children, Albanese has been forced to reconcile both her international advocacy and her safety. With regard to her remarks about Gaza War, the Netherlands revoked an invitation to visit the Dutch House of Representatives in February 2025.
The Broader Implications
The Albanese case demonstrates the tension that has been occurring in international affairs. Her case has provided some underlying concerns on the autonomy of the international human rights mechanisms, sovereignty of a nation-state and the role of civil society in account things done by the government.
The imposition of sanctions against her is a huge step towards worsening the relationships between the United States and UN human rights systems. They indicate the readiness to exert pressure on the international institutions and their representatives with the help of economic instruments, which can be a dangerous precedent in the activity of other states.
Final thoughts
The time of Francesca Albanese as UN Special Rapporteur is a forceful-and controversial-demonstration of how it takes so much courage to tell uncomfortable truths on the international platform. Her defiant journalism in covering the Gaza conflict, devotion to international law, and commitment to lead in defending rights of people all these have confronted governments besides power systems which are view to dominate world media.
Depending on one side a hero or a very controversial figure, Albanese has driven the world to face the human toll of political impunity. In so doing, she has reConstituted what it entails to be a human rights activist in a generation of increasing geo-political polarisation. Her legacy, still remains an incomplete work to be done, though it can remind us that the path of justice is to be paid in some form at the cost of the individual–but silence is a greater cost to pay in exchange of injustice.
