Secretary of State Marco Rubio came out with sanctions against the United Nations Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur to Palestine, Francesca Albanese, this week.
Rubio, in a post on X, stated that the sanctions are a result of her "illegitimate and shameful efforts" to have the International Criminal Court take "action against U.S. and Israeli officials, companies, and executives," as a result of the Israelis' ongoing war in Gaza.
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 U.S. and Israeli officials, companies, and executives.
— Secretary Marco Rubio (@SecRubio) July 9, 2025
Albanese’s campaign of political and economic…
Neither the United States nor Israel has signed the Rome Statutes, which established the ICC and determined its formal jurisdiction. In other words, neither country is beholden to the ICC, nor should they be.
Albanese, an Italian legal scholar and so-called expert on human rights, has called on the ICC to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. She’s also urged the court to go after corporations that she claims are making money off what she calls “Israel’s settler-colonial project.” Groups like UN Watch have also flagged anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic comments made by Albanese.
Back in 2014, she claimed the U.S. had been “subjugated by the Jewish lobby.” Speaking at a pro-Palestine conference in November 2022, one that featured multiple members of Hamas, she told the crowd they had a “right to resist” the Israeli “occupation.” She’s also compared Israel to Nazi Germany and described the United States as “a nation founded upon genocide.” In May, Albanese posted on social media that the humanitarian aid to Gazans, as organized by the U.S. and Israel, was “concentration camp 2025.” At the U.N., she called the war against Hamas “the escalatory phase of a longstanding settler colonial project of erasure.” In other words, she appears to be biased.
The sanctions will prevent this pro-Hamas and anti-Western U.N. lawyer from entering the United States.