Sanctions against international law
by Karin Leukefeld
(picture Tilo Gräser)
In times of open violations of international and humanitarian law, disregard for the UN Charter, and genocide against the Palestinians broadcast live on social and international media, think tanks and the media seem to be philosophising thoughtfully about the “catastrophic collapse of norms against the use of force”: “Might unmakes right”.1
But the responsible states, led by the US and Israel, have long since moved into a different universe, where the hegemonic power of the US-led Western world is pulling out all the stops to push back “the rest of the world” in the Global South. The European imperial colonial powers are continuing in West Asia what they began before and during the First World War. They want to gain control from the eastern Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf region and place the area under the control of Israel as the “New Middle East”. For Israel – according to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – is also fighting the battle against evil on behalf of Europe and the United States. Those who do not bow to the Israeli bombing campaigns are destroyed and driven out. Israel’s patrons in Washington, London, Paris, Berlin, and Brussels provide weapons, money, media protection, and political protection.
Unilateral economic sanctions are a commonly used weapon in this battle for subjugation. The US and the EU use such sanctions to force other states, as well as companies and individuals, to serve Western interests. Another means of warfare is the “elimination of political opponents by legal means”, also known as “lawfare”. With media support, aggressive campaigns are launched against the “target persons”, which can create an atmosphere not altogether unlike a pogrom. This weapon has been tried and tested many times in Latin America, where legal accusations of dubious origin but amplified by the media have dragged high-ranking politicians in Argentina and Brazil before the courts.
The US is now turning the weapon of lawfare, having supported its use in Latin America against one person, accusing her of waging a “political and economic war” against the US and Israel. This, too, is a form of “lawfare”. The person in question is Francesca Albanese, the UN’s special rapporteur on the human rights of Palestinians. In Germany, she was banned from speaking at universities in Munich and Berlin at the beginning of the year, and her impromptu appearance in an event room in Berlin-Mitte was monitored by a half-dozen police officers in the audience. A few days ago, the University of Bern also banned the committed lawyer, who had been invited by Amnesty International, from speaking. An alternative event took place in Zurich.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has now imposed sanctions on Albanese, who is charged with monitoring and reporting upon human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967. The State Department announced this in a press release2 on 9 July. Rubio invoked Executive Order 14203, which President Donald Trump had previously used to impose sanctions on the International Criminal Court.3
The US administration accuses Albanese of directly engaging with the International Criminal Court to request that it “investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute nationals of the United States and Israel”. Neither the US nor Israel are parties to the Rome Statute, which established the ICC in 1998 and went into force in 2002. According to the US administration, this means that those who attempt to prevent war crimes from being committed can be prosecuted for doing so. Rubio accuses Albanese of not having approached the two states and thus having “grossly” violated the sovereignty of both countries.
Albanese was “biased” and “malicious” and “unfit for service as Special Rapporteur”, the statement continues. She spread “unabashed antisemitism”, supported terrorism and showed “open contempt for the United States, Israel and the West”. This was evident, among other things, in her recommendation to the ICC to “issue arrest warrants targeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant”.
The US administration also accuses her of having recently sent “threatening letters to dozens of entities worldwide, including major American companies across finance, technology, defence, energy and hospitality,” in which she made “extreme and unfounded accusations” and recommended that “the ICC pursue investigations and prosecutions of these companies and their executives”. According to the US secretary, Albanese is waging a campaign of “political and economic warfare” that threatens national interests and sovereignty. “All measures” deemed necessary would be taken to respond to this case of lawfare, and the sovereignty of the United States and “our allies” would be protected.
Hitting a nerve
Francesca Albanese responded in a brief statement to Al-Jazeera with a text message: “No comment on mafia-style intimidation techniques. Busy reminding (UN) member states of their obligations to stop and punish genocide. And those who profit from it.”
The following day, she said in an interview with Middle East Eye that she had apparently “hit a nerve”.4 When asked by her interviewer how she was doing, she said her concern was that there are people “dying in Gaza while you and I are speaking, and the United Nations are totally unable to intervene.” It was in her capacity as a UN expert that she had recommended that the ICC initiate criminal proceedings.
The US administration is destroying an international legal system “that protects all of us”, Albanese said. Washington is eroding “the foundation of the multilateral order”. She did not hold back in her criticism of the United Nations’ inaction, saying that there were 193 member states in the United Nations and “we are called the United Nations, not the United States”.
Stephane Dujarric, spokesperson for UN Secretary-General António Guterres, described imposing sanctions on a special rapporteur of the UN Human Rights Council as a “dangerous precedent”. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, called on the US administration to lift the sanctions against Albanese immediately. They were directed against the “work she has undertaken under the mandate on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory,” Türk said. The US had already demanded at the beginning of July that Albanese be removed from her post.
Immediately after the US sanctions against Albanese were announced, Chris Hedges, who was a New York Times correspondent in the Middle East for many years, wrote, “When the history of the genocide in Gaza is written, one of the most courageous and outspoken champions for justice and the adherence to international law will be Francesca Albanese.”5
As Hedges reports, Albanese routinely receives death threats and endures smear campaigns orchestrated by Israel and its allies. She denounces the “moral and political corruption of the world” allowing the genocide of the Palestinians and their expulsion to continue. As part of her responsibilities she documents war crimes in Gaza and the West Bank, including her report, “Genocide as colonial erasure”.6
Straight talk against deception
Albanese, an Italian lawyer by training, speaks plainly. For months, she has been pointing out that states, governments, and corporations that have not ceased their cooperation with and support for Israel despite the war against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip could one day face charges of supporting genocide. She pointed out to European leaders, including Ursula von der Leyen, president of the EU Commission, the possible criminal consequences of political support for Israel in light of the war of annihilation against Gaza.
Albanese published her latest report on 30 June. It names more than 60 international companies, including technology giants such as Google, Amazon, and Microsoft, as well as financial institutions, which, through their cooperation with Israel, have not only profited from the occupation of Palestinian territories in violation of international law but are now also profiting from the genocide in Gaza. The report is titled “From Economy of Occupation to Economy of Genocide.”7
In the report, Albanese calls on the ICC and the judiciaries of UN member states to launch investigations into the companies named in the report and their executives on suspicion of supporting the genocide of the Palestinians. She called on the United Nations to impose sanctions on Israel and freeze its assets. This is provided for in Article 7 of the UN Charter, as well as in other internationally agreed documents.
Despite extensive documentation of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the Israeli government and army, the German federal government, the parties represented in the Bundestag in Germany are doing nothing; major, so-called “quality” media are silent. At the EU level, German government representatives, including the chancellor and an EU antisemitism commissioner, recently spoke out explicitly in favour of continuing to support and protect Israel.8
As criticism of Israel’s conduct increases among other EU states, the German government is trying to blunt their influence by pretending to take action and professing openness towards an allegedly “increasing chance for a ceasefire” and for a mandate for the foreign ministers of the EU states, who are to discuss an audit report and possible consequences (for Israel) on 15 July 2025. (It has since become known that Germany (on 15 July) once again blocked punitive measures. According to Berlin, an agreement negotiated in the meantime between the EU and Israel to send more aid to Gaza must be implemented. Until then, it is out of the question to discuss a halt to the cooperation agreement or other sanctions, German Chancellor Merz stated.9
Instead of “sending more aid to Gaza,” Israel intensified its attacks and announced plans to build a “humanitarian city” on the ruins of the city of Rafah. Anyone who enters there will not return, according to Defence Minister Israel Katz. Those who wish to do so can emigrate from there to an Arab country.
Gideon Levy, the long-time “Haaretz“ columnist, refers to the Israeli government’s plans to build a so-called “humanitarian city” on the ruins of the southern Palestinian city of Rafah, from where Palestinians are to be deported, as a “concentration camp”.10
“There is no other way to describe it but really an establishment of a concentration camp”, Levy said in an interview with Al-Jazeera (11 July 2025). It was “really very hard to believe that this is happening 80 years after the Holocaust.” Defence Minister Katz, who “invented this crazy satanic idea”, was himself a descendant of Holocaust survivors, Levy said. According to him, most Israelis have lost all humanity towards Gaza.
Concentration camps in Gaza? Apparently, no problem in Germany. Here, people are celebrating the German-Israeli anniversary year: 60 years of Israeli-German diplomatic relations, shared values, and the “strategic partnership” with Israel, which is “surpassed only by the USA”.11 •
1 https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/might-unmakes-right-hathaway-shapiro
2 https://www.state.gov/releases/office-of-the-spokesperson/2025/07/sanctioning-lawfare-that-targets-u-s-and-israeli-persons/
3 https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/02/12/2025-02612/imposing-sanctions-on-the-international-criminal-court
4 https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/francesca-albanese-defiant-face-trump-sanctions
5 https://chrishedges.substack.com/cp/167974955
6 https://www.un.org/unispal/document/genocide-as-colonial-erasure-report-francesca-albanese-01oct24/
7 https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/country-reports/ahrc5923-economy-occupation-economy-genocide-report-special-rapporteur
8 https://euobserver.com/eu-and-the-world/ar349d1cbc
9 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sDnSuj5_uA
10 https://www.diplo.news/articles/deutsch-israelisches-jubilaumsjahr
First published https://www.nachdenkseiten.de/?p=135981 on 14 July 2025
(Translation Current Concerns)
“It looks like I’ve hit a nerve. […] I stand so deeply and firmly against this system that probably I need to be silenced. And hitting me with whatever means they have, is the only thing they can do instead of doing what I’m asking from States and companies – to comply with International Law. As simple as that. […] All of a sudden, I’m a threat to the global economy. Seriously, the Big Tech, the giants that control algorithms, armaments and capital are endangered by me, just because I asked them to comply with International Law and stop profiteering from crimes, international crimes, crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide.”
(Francesca Albanese in Interview with Middle East Eye on 10 July 2025)
“Silence is not an option”
UN Special Procedures’ Coordination Committee condemns US sanctions on Francesca Albanese
Geneva (10 July 2025) – The Coordination Committee of the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council today strongly condemned the US Government’s sanctions on Francesca Albanese, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, for allegedly assisting the International Criminal Court in taking action against the US or Israel officials.
“These are not only sanctions against one independent human rights expert appointed by the UN Human Rights Council. Rather, they reflect the continued assault of the current US administration on the entire UN system and its core values of human rights, justice, accountability and the rule of law,” the Committee said.
The Committee pointed out that Francesca Albanese has only been discharging her mandate given by the Human Rights Council, which specifically requests the Special Rapporteur to investigate Israel’s violations of the principles and bases of international law, international humanitarian law and the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War in the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel since 1967. “Despite facing very challenging circumstances, including intimidation and coordinated personal attacks (including against her family members), Albanese has been operating in line with the Code of Conduct for Special Procedures mandate holders,” they said.
“Documenting and exposing the grave violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law committed by Israel and other actors is work that should be supported by States, not sanctioned or undermined. We applaud the courage of Francesca Albanese in speaking truth to power and stand in solidarity with her.”
“Despite such attempts to intimidate UN Special Procedures mandate holders, we will continue to act independently and with integrity to discharge our mandates given by the Human Rights Council to uphold international human rights standards,” the Committee said.
They stressed that sanctions will not silence Albanese or other mandate holders performing their legitimate work to hold all States and other actors accountable for human rights violations.
“Remaining silent in the face of such blatant disregard and contempt for human rights law is not an option,” the Committee said, calling on all States, the Human Rights Council and members of the international community to act decisively to defend the multilateral system for the promotion and protection of human rights and condemn this unjustified attack on Francesca Albanese and the UN human rights system as a whole.
“The ongoing erosion of the human rights ecosystem and its accountability mechanisms can no longer be ignored,” the Committee said.
* The Coordination Committee is a body of six independent experts which coordinates and facilitates the work of special procedures as a whole. It is currently composed of Surya Deva, Chair, Special Rapporteur on the right to development; Jovana Jezdimerovic Ranito, Chairperson-Rapporteur of the Working Group on the use of mercenaries as a means of violating human rights and impeding the exercise of the right of peoples to self-determination, Siobhán Mullally, Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially women and children, Tomoya Obokata, Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences, Alexandra Xanthaki, Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights, and Isha Dyfan, (ex-officio), Independent Expert on the situation of human rights in Somalia.
Source: https://www.un.org/unispal/document/silence-is-not-an-option-press-release-10jul25/