Fresh from face-to-face meetings in Washington with fugitive from justice Benjamin Netanyahu, indicted by the ICC for crimes against humanity, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio took the extraordinary step of declaring sanctions against the United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, Francesca Albanese.
The announcement was accompanied by a flurry of false and defamatory statements by Rubio attacking Albanese, further demonstrating the lengths to which the Trump administration (and the Israel proxies empowered within it) are willing to go to buttress the impunity of the Israeli regime.
Rubio’s lawless action has been condemned and rejected by international organizations, experts, and human rights defenders across the globe as a moral outrage.
Indeed, outside of Washington (and the Israel lobby groups that hold dangerous sway there), Rubio’s smears and his lawless imposition of sanctions will bring only condemnation of Rubio and the Trump administration. Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese is a highly respected expert and human rights defender, well known globally as an advocate who has dedicated her life to opposing all forms of bigotry and oppression and to promoting the cause of universal human rights.
She has been widely praised for carrying out her United Nations mandate with honor and with the highest degree of competence and integrity, particularly during the Israeli regime’s twenty months of genocide in Palestine.
But this action by the U.S. government is not only a moral outrage. It is also entirely unlawful.
The sanctions order and its accompanying statements are a direct breach of the United Nations Charter, the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations, and the Agreement Regarding the Headquarters of the United Nations (Host Country Agreement).
They represent a deliberate obstruction of the human rights mission of the United Nations. And given that this action is taken to insulate Israel and other perpetrators (including the corporations named in the Specials Rapporteur’s latest report) from accountability for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide, it is also a breach of U.S. obligations under the UN Genocide Convention (under which Israel is currently on trial in the International Court of Justice), and under Common Article 1 of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 (obliging the U.S. to ensure that Israel and other parties respect the Conventions).
Furthermore, as this act by the Government of the United States was explicitly connected by the Secretary of State to its (also unlawful) sanctions against the International Criminal Court, it is also an offense against the administration of justice as codified by Article 70 (1) (c ) of the Rome Statute, for which territorial jurisdiction may be secured through the locus of the Court (the Netherlands, a state party to the Rome Statute), and through which Special Rapporteur Albanese may be entitled to reparations as a victim of the unlawful conduct.
Additionally, Special Rapporteur Albanese may be entitled to compensation for civil wrongs (torts) for economic and reputational damage, given the defamatory nature of Secretary Rubio’s statements, and their manifest basis in “actual malice” and a “reckless disregard for the truth,” recognized by US courts as exceptions to sovereign immunity.
Of course, as recent years have demonstrated, the U.S. cares little about international (or even domestic) legality. But external pressure and action are inevitable.
Outside the U.S., moves are underway to demand that the United States withdraw the sanctions and compensate Special Rapporteur Albanese for any and all economic, reputational, or emotional harms caused to her or her family, and compensate the United Nations for any damages done to her vital mandate.
The United Nations and all UN member states and regional organizations (like the EU) can and must publicly reject the sanctions, use all mechanisms at their control (of which there are many- legal, financial, political, and diplomatic) to insulate the Special Rapporteur from their effects, speak out clearly in her defense, and use diplomatic channels to press the United States to lift the sanctions and compensate the Special Rapporteur.
If the many statements already issued by influential members of the international community are any indication, the lawless U.S. government may soon learn that, in attacking Francesca Albanese in this way, it has crossed a bridge too far in its campaign for Israeli impunity.
And regardless of the short-term harms of this shameful act by the Trump administration, we can be certain that the U.S. will not succeed in its ultimate objectives of silencing Albanese and the broader UN, intimidating other human rights defenders, and guaranteeing the Israeli regime’s impunity for war crimes, crimes against humanity, apartheid, and genocide. To the contrary, such brazen acts of lawlessness and complicity in genocide will only stoke the flames of resistance to these historic crimes, and to their co-perpetrators in Washington and Tel Aviv.
The global movement for solidarity with Palestine is growing. And, as has been evident since Rubio’s latest shameless act, that movement stands unapologetically with Francesca Albanese. And so do I.
In 2024, Ms. Albanese was snubbed by Global Affairs Canada (equivalent to the State Department) and was denied the opportunity to meet with a Canadian parliamentary foreign affairs committee. The complicity in genocide can be found in every western capital. Human rights have a skin colour in the West; the darker your skin, the fewer human rights you have.
Partners claimed they were only doing “pro-bono” and “rogue genocide consulting work” on Gaza. If that’s your best cover story, it will still get you fired and outrage your paying client list. BCG: is doing some more damage control:
The crisis engulfing Boston Consulting Group over its involvement with a humanitarian project in Gaza deepened Thursday when the firm announced two senior partners were stepping down from leadership roles over their connection to the work.
The firm got involved last fall in an effort that became a widely-criticized Israeli-backed aid-distribution initiative. Hundreds of Palestinians seeking supplies have been killed in recent weeks after troops fired toward crowds near aid sites, according to local health authorities. The Gaza work has spiraled into the most significant crisis in BCG’s roughly six-decade history.
Long-term clients are expressing outrage. Employees and BCG alumni are pointing fingers, asking how one of the best-known corporate advisory firms got involved in Gaza in the first place.
The project began as a pro-bono effort to help solve food-supply challenges in Gaza. The firm says it turned into an unauthorized project by two other partners against the firm’s instructions. That work included a postwar financial model to voluntarily relocate Palestinians.
In the latest leadership shuffle, BCG’s chief risk officer, Adam Farber, and the head of its social-impact practice, Rich Hutchinson, are stepping down from those roles but remain as senior partners. According to people familiar with the matter, both were aware of early phases of the work but not all of the details.
Those moves follow the June firing of two partners, Matt Schlueter and Ryan Ordway, who BCG suggests essentially went rogue in the months after starting the project. Both Schlueter and Ordway had worked in BCG’s public sector defense and security practice before being ousted. — Wall Street Journal
That someone writing about the economy of genocide in Gaza would be sanctioned by Trump and his fellow war criminals is entirely predictable — it threatens not only his war criminal investment but also his future projects in Gaza
Sanctions on Albanese might be an attempt by the President to prevent Americans from hearing speech — an issue of government abridgment of speech (First Amendment).
Implication of First Amendment
The First Amendment confers a right to receive information and ideas, including the right to hear speech and read writings. This principle has been recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court as an essential corollary to the right to free speech.
Key Cases:
Stanley v. Georgia, 394 U.S. 557 (1969):
“It is now well established that the Constitution protects the right to receive information and ideas.”
This case held that the state could not criminalize the private possession of obscene materials, emphasizing an individual’s right to receive ideas.
Board of Education v. Pico, 457 U.S. 853 (1982):
In a case involving the removal of books from a public school library, the Court noted:
“The right to receive ideas is a necessary predicate to the recipient’s meaningful exercise of his own rights of speech, press, and political freedom.”
Martin v. Struthers, 319 U.S. 141 (1943):
The Court struck down a ban on door-to-door distribution of literature, observing:
“Freedom to distribute information to every citizen wherever he desires to receive it is so clearly vital to the preservation of a free society…”
Virginia State Board of Pharmacy v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, 425 U.S. 748 (1976):
The Court recognized that:
“If there is a right to advertise, there is a reciprocal right to receive the advertising.”
Summary:
While the First Amendment primarily speaks in terms of protecting freedom of speech, press, and expression, it also implicitly protects the right to receive information, including the right to hear others speak and read others’ writings. Without that right, the protections for speakers would be hollow—freedom of speech includes the freedom to be heard.
The entire West should hang its head in SHAME! One of the very few people with the guts to openly bring to light what israel is doing in Gaza and yet…she is vilified, sanctioned, ostracized as if she was the one carrying out genocide in Gaza. SHAME ON ISRAEL…SHAME ON ZIONISM.