GENEVA: UN Human Rights Council special rapporteur Francesca Albanese on Thursday denounced US sanctions against her as “calculated to weaken my mission” as rapporteur on the Palestinian territories.
“I will continue to do what I have to do. Yes, of course, it will be challenging… I’m putting everything I have on the line,” Albanese told reporters during a visit to Ljubljana.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday announced sanctions against the outspoken UN special rapporteur on the rights situation in the Palestinian territories.
Rubio linked the move to her support for the International Criminal Court (ICC), some of whose judges have already been sanctioned by the US.
The US Secretary of State said the US was sanctioning Albanese for directly engaging with the ICC in its efforts to prosecute American or Israeli nationals, accusing her of being unfit for service as a UN Special Rapporteur.
The sanctions are likely to prevent Albanese from travelling to the US and would block any assets she has in the country.
In a post on X, Albanese did not directly address the sanctions, but wrote: “[O]n this day more than ever: I stand firmly and convincingly on the side of justice, as I have always done.”
The message, in which the Italy-born special rapporteur reposted a thread of support for the ICC, said she came from the court’s founding country, where lawyers and judges had “defended justice at great cost and often with their own life”.
“I intend to honour that tradition,” she added in the post.
Albanese was quoted by Al Jazeera as describing the sanctions as “mafia style intimidation techniques”.
It is the latest escalation by the Trump administration as it wages a campaign against the ICC, having already sanctioned four of its judges.
The US took the action after the court last year issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his then-Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes in Gaza.
