Since
returning to office in January, President Donald Trump has stopped US
engagement with the UN Human Rights Council, extended a halt to funding for the
Palestinian relief agency UNRWA and ordered a review of the UN cultural agency
UNESCO. He has also announced US plans to quit the Paris climate deal and the
World Health Organization.
"Today
I am imposing sanctions on UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur Francesca
Albanese for her illegitimate and shameful efforts to prompt (International Criminal
Court) action against US and Israeli officials, companies, and
executives," Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement.
Albanese, an Italian lawyer and academic, has called on states at the UN Human Rights Council to impose an arms embargo and cut off trade and financial ties with Israel while accusing the US ally of waging a "genocidal campaign" in Gaza.
Israel has faced accusations of genocide at the
International Court of Justice and of war crimes at the ICC over its
devastating military assault on Gaza.
Israel denies the accusations and says its campaign amounts
to self-defense after a deadly October 2023 Hamas attack.
In a report published earlier this month, Albanese
accused over 60 companies, including major arms manufacturers and technology
firms, of involvement in supporting Israeli settlements and military actions in
Gaza. The report called on companies to cease dealings with Israel and for
legal accountability for executives implicated in alleged violations of
international law.
Albanese
is one of dozens of independent human rights experts mandated by the United
Nations to report on specific themes and crises. The views expressed by special
rapporteurs do not reflect those of the global body as a whole.
Rights experts slammed the US sanctions against Albanese.
Dylan Williams, vice president for government affairs at the Center for
International Policy think tank, labeled them as "rogue state
behavior" while Amnesty International said special rapporteurs must be
supported and not sanctioned.
"Governments
around the world and all actors who believe in the rule-based order and
international law must do everything in their power to mitigate and block the
effect of the sanctions against Francesca Albanese and more generally to
protect the work and independence of Special Rapporteurs," Amnesty
International's Secretary General Agnes Callamard, a former UN special
rapporteur, said.
His administration imposed sanctions on four judges at
the ICC in June in retaliation over the war tribunal's issuance of an
arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a past
decision to open a case into alleged war crimes by US troops in Afghanistan.
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