UN expert Francesca Albanese faces US sanctions while gaining support for the Nobel Peace Prize
Image: Fabrice Coffrini / AFP
Over 300,000 people have signed a petition supporting United Nations expert Francesca Albanese to win the Nobel Peace Prize after US President Donald Trump's administration sanctioned her in connection with her work investigating alleged human rights abuses in the Palestinian territories.
The US State Department announced the sanctions on Wednesday, July 9, targeting Albanese, who is an independent UN expert on the situation of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, including the West Bank and Gaza.
Reports state that the move marks the first time a UN special rapporteur has been sanctioned by the United States.
The decision comes after growing international scrutiny of Israel's 21-month military campaign in Gaza, and follows a failed US effort to pressure the UN Human Rights Council to remove Albanese from her post.
Albanese, who is a human rights lawyer, has been vocal in calling for an end to what she has described as a 'genocide' being carried out by Israel in Gaza.
Both Israel and the United States, which provides Israel with military support, have rejected that characterisation.
Israel is currently facing a genocide case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and war crimes investigations at the International Criminal Court (ICC) related to its actions in Gaza.
Albanese's stance has received support from several human rights organisations and leading genocide scholars.
A petition hosted on avaaz.org supporting Albanese to win the Nobel Peace Prize has garnered over 300,000 signatures.
The organisers of the petition aim to reach at least 500,000 signatures.
"As people from across the world, we believe Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza, and the doctors caring for people in Gaza deserve a Nobel Peace Prize for their work,' the petition read.
'She spoke out - now the Trump administration is punishing Francesca Albanese with sanctions,' it added.
'Meanwhile, she keeps centering those most at risk: everyone struggling in Gaza.'
Video Player is loading.
Play Video
Play
Unmute
Current Time
0:00
/
Duration
-:-
Loaded :
0%
Stream Type LIVE
Seek to live, currently behind live
LIVE
Remaining Time
-
0:00
This is a modal window.
Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window.
Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan
Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan
Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan
Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque
Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps
Reset
restore all settings to the default values Done
Close Modal Dialog
End of dialog window.
Advertisement
Next
Stay
Close ✕
Ad loading
UN special rapporteurs are independent experts appointed by the UN Human Rights Council to monitor, report, and advise on specific human rights issues or situations in various countries.
They are not paid by the UN and operate independently of any government.
Albanese was reportedly sanctioned days after publishing a scathing report on June 30, in which she named more than 60 companies - including major US technology firms - that she alleged were complicit in transforming Israel's 'economy of occupation' into an 'economy of genocide.'
The report urged the ICC and national courts to investigate corporate executives and companies and recommended asset freezes and sanctions by UN member states.
In a statement announcing the sanctions, Secretary of State Marco Rubio accused Albanese of 'economic warfare' and said she had worked with the ICC to seek investigations against US and Israeli nationals without their governments' consent.
'Today, I am imposing sanctions on Francesca Paola Albanese, the United Nations Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories Occupied since 1967, pursuant to President Trump's Executive Order 14203, 'Imposing Sanctions on the International Criminal Court,'' Rubio said.
He added that neither the United States nor Israel is party to the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the ICC.
Rubio called Albanese's actions 'a gross infringement on the sovereignty of both countries.'
'The United States has repeatedly condemned and objected to the biased and malicious activities of Albanese that have long made her unfit for service as a Special Rapporteur,' Rubio said.
He also accused Albanese of making 'extreme and unfounded accusations,' expressing 'support for terrorism,' and writing 'threatening letters' to dozens of corporations across sectors including finance, defense, energy, and technology, urging the ICC to investigate them.
'We will not tolerate these campaigns of political and economic warfare, which threaten our national interests and sovereignty,' Rubio said.
'The United States will continue to take whatever actions we deem necessary to respond to lawfare, to check and prevent illegitimate ICC overreach and abuse of power, and to protect our sovereignty and that of our allies.'
Despite the sanctions, the campaign to nominate Albanese and frontline doctors in Gaza for the Nobel Peace Prize continues to gain momentum, with growing global support and widespread calls to recognise their work.
IOL
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
IOL News
3 hours ago
- IOL News
IEA sees anaemic global oil demand growth amid tariff turmoil
President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump depart Lackland Air Force Base after visiting Kerrville, Texas where they met with state and local leaders, first responders and victims of last week's flash flooding on July 11, 2025 in San Antonio, Texas. Image: AFP Growth in oil demand is anaemic globally, with several countries in the crosshairs of US President Donald Trump tariff threats suffering drops, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said Friday. Annual growth in oil demand fell from 1.1 million barrels per day (mbd) in the first quarter of the year to just 0.5 mbd in the second, the IEA said in its monthly oil market review. Consumption in emerging markets was "particularly lacklustre", it added. It lowered its forecast for oil-demand growth for 2025 as a whole to 0.7 mbd, "its lowest rate since 2009" apart from when the Covid pandemic shut large swathes of the global economy in 2020. "Although it may be premature to attribute this slower growth to the detrimental impact of tariffs manifesting themselves in the real economy, the largest quarterly contractions occurred in countries that found themselves in the crosshairs of the tariff turmoil," the IEA said. The drops were particularly sharp in China, Japan, South Korea and Mexico, all targeted by Trump with stiff tariffs. Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Advertisement Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Next Stay Close ✕ Oil demand in Europe and other Asian emerging economies, also targeted by Trump, proved more resilient. The IEA sees the oil production exceeding demand in 2025, with output rising by 2.1 mbd to 105.1 mbd on average, while demand averages 103.7 mbd. In 2026, it sees demand rising by a tepid 0.72 mbd to 104.4 mbd. Meanwhile supply is expected to rise by 1.3 mbd to 106.4 mbd. AFP
IOL News
4 hours ago
- IOL News
Ethnic cleansing awaits North Darfur's besieged, starving population
Displaced Sudanese women and children gather at a camp near the town of Tawila in North Darfur on February 11, 2025, amid the ongoing war between the army and paramilitary forces. Image: AFP Pavan Kulkarni Nearly half a million people were forced to flee from North Darfur state's capital, El Fasher, and the nearby Zamzam camp for displaced people in just the two months of April and May, the UN Secretary-General's spokesperson, Stéphane Dujarric, said in a press briefing on Monday, July 7. North Darfur is the only one of the five states where the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) have retained a foothold in the war-torn Sudan's vast western region of Darfur, overrun by its rival, the paramilitary Rapid Support Force (RSF), within six months of the war's start in April 2023. Moving against this last holdout, the RSF laid siege in May 2024 on El Fasher, where the SAF has a base, and the Zamzam camp on its outskirts, where some of the local self-defence units allied with the SAF are positioned. 'People are not only caught in indiscriminate heavy fighting between the two warring forces, but are also being 'actively targeted by the RSF and its allies, notably based on their ethnicity,' Michel Olivier Lacharité, MSF head of emergencies, said on July 3. SAF created the RSF in Darfur The RSF was coalesced in 2013 from the militias the SAF had spawned from Arabic-speaking nomadic communities to perpetrate mass atrocities on the regional-language-speaking groups of sedentary farmers that supported the rebel groups during the Darfur civil war in the 2000s. The partnership between SAF and the RSF lasted a decade, during which they seized power together to form a military junta in 2019, when mass pro-democracy protests forced the ouster of Omar al-Bashir after a 30-year-long dictatorship. The duo deployed its troops to jointly repress the militant protests that continued until April 15, 2023, when the intensifying power struggle within the junta between the two forces crossed the Rubicon, mobilising their forces against each other and hurling the country into a civil war. Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Advertisement Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Next Stay Close ✕ IDPs under attack Now continuing into its third year, the civil war has claimed an estimated 150,000 lives and displaced nearly 13 million people, unleashing in this poor North African country the world's worst displacement crisis. Over three million of the displaced have fled to other countries as refugees. An estimated 8.6 million have remained as Internally Displaced People (IDPs). Darfur, which already had almost 3.1 million IDPs from the regional civil war in the 2000s, was among the worst-affected regions by this new war. The RSF manoeuvred quickly to take control over this region, starting with West Darfur, where it committed ethnically targeted massacres in June 2023 against the Masalit community, most of whom were displaced in the Darfur civil war. Ethnic cleansing of this community from West Darfur was nearly complete by November that year. By then, the RSF had taken over most of the region, with North Darfur as the SAF's only holdout. Members of the state's Zaghawa community, which had previously remained neutral, volunteered in large numbers to form self-defence units that aligned themselves with the SAF. 'In light of the ethnically motivated mass atrocities committed on the Masalit in West Darfur… MSF fears such a scenario will be repeated in El Fasher – notably because witnesses report that RSF soldiers spoke of plans to 'clean El Fasher' of its non-Arab, and especially Zaghawa, community,' MSF said in a report released on July 3. Titled 'Besieged, attacked, starved: Mass atrocities in El Fasher', the report added: 'Aside from the direct violence exerted on civilians, residents from El Fasher and surrounding areas [also] have been prevented from meeting their basic needs.' Famine The RSF's siege since last May has cut off the city and its surrounding localities from supplies. Both sides have repeatedly bombed their markets. At the Zamzam camp located seventeen kilometres south of El Fasher, a famine was declared in August 2024. Among the largest IDP camps in the country, it was already sheltering about 350,000 displaced people from the Darfur civil war. With new displacements from this intra-junta civil war, IDPs nearly doubled in Zamzam. Its meagre resources in the form of aid were already stretched when its supply was cut off by the RSF's siege in May 2024. 'When fighting erupted in Zamzam in December 2024 and then intensified at the end of January and in February 2025, the camp was hosting … up to 700,000,' MSF's report added. Most of them had to flee again, for the second, even third time, after the RSF's large-scale ground offensive this April, displacing over 400,000 in three weeks, according to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM). 'A large proportion of the population fled to El Fasher, where they remained trapped, out of reach of humanitarian aid and exposed to attacks and further mass violence,' the report warns. No escape for the Zaghawa community Over 68,000 others have fled across the western border to Chad, according to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR). No one identified as Zaghawa was let through the RSF checkpoints, multiple survivors told the MSF. 'They would only let mothers with small children under the age of five through,' said one of the refugees interviewed in Chad. 'Other children and adult men didn't go through. Males over fifteen can hardly cross the border [into Chad]. They take them, they push them aside, and then we only hear a noise, gunshots … Fifty families came along with me. Not even one boy of 15 years old or above... is among us' in Chad. 'The number of people killed and injured' in the RSF's offensive on Zamzam is 'unknown', the report said, adding 'with no functional hospital within the camp, most of the wounded had no access to life-saving medical assistance.' 'Access to healthcare has been rendered nearly impossible, as most healthcare infrastructure has been partially or completely damaged.' MSF's medical facilities have been attacked over a dozen times since last May. * This article was originally published at ** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL, Independent Media or The African.
IOL News
5 hours ago
- IOL News
BRICS Summit 2025: There is no alternative to multilateralism
Heads of State and Government from BRICS Member Countries pose for a family photo at the XVII BRICS Summit at the Museum of Modern Arts held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on July 7, 2025. Image: GCIS Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva The year 2025 should be a time of celebration, marking eight decades of the United Nations' existence. But it risks going down in history as the year when the international order built since 1945 collapsed. The cracks had long been visible. Since the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, the intervention in Libya, and the war in Ukraine, some permanent members of the Security Council have trivialised the illegal use of force. The failure to act vis-à-vis the genocide in Gaza represents a denial of the most basic values of humanity. The inability to overcome differences is fueling a new escalation of violence in the Middle East, the latest chapter of which includes the attack on Iran. The law of the strongest also threatens the multilateral trading system. Sweeping tariffs disrupt value chains and push the global economy into a spiral of high prices and stagnation. The World Trade Organisation has been hollowed out, and no one remembers the Doha Development Round. The 2008 financial collapse exposed the failure of neoliberal globalisation, but the world remained locked into the austerity playbook. The choice to bail out the ultra-wealthy and major corporations at the expense of ordinary citizens and small businesses has deepened inequality. In the past ten years, the $33.9 trillion accumulated by the world's richest 1 per cent is equivalent to 22 times the resources needed to eradicate global poverty. The stranglehold on the state's capacity for action has led to public distrust in institutions. Discontent has become fertile ground for extremist narratives that threaten democracy and promote hate as a political project. Many countries have cut cooperation programs instead of redoubling efforts to implement the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. The available resources are insufficient, the costs are high, access is bureaucratic, and the conditions imposed often fail to respect local realities. This is not about charity, but about addressing disparities rooted in centuries of exploitation, interference, and violence against the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa, and Asia. In a world with a combined GDP of over $100 trillion, it is unacceptable that more than 700 million people still suffer from hunger and live without electricity or water. Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Advertisement Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Next Stay Close ✕ The richest countries bear the greatest historical responsibility for carbon emissions, yet it is the poorest who will suffer the most from climate change. The year 2024 was the hottest in history, showing that reality is moving faster than the Paris Agreement. The binding obligations of the Kyoto Protocol were replaced by voluntary commitments, and the financing pledges made at COP15 in Copenhagen — promising $100 billion annually — never materialised. The recent increase in NATO's military spending makes that possibility even more remote. Attacks on international institutions ignore the concrete benefits the multilateral system has brought to people's lives. If smallpox has been eradicated, the ozone layer preserved, and labour rights still protected in much of the world, it is thanks to the efforts of these institutions. In times of growing polarisation, terms like "deglobalization" have become commonplace. But it is impossible to "de-planetize" our shared existence. No wall is high enough to preserve islands of peace and prosperity surrounded by violence and misery. Today's world is vastly different from that of 1945. New forces have emerged, and new challenges have arisen. If international organisations seem ineffective, it is because their structure no longer reflects the current reality. Unilateral and exclusionary actions are worsened by the absence of collective leadership. The solution to the multilateralism crisis is not to abandon it, but to rebuild it on fairer and more inclusive foundations. This is the understanding that Brazil — whose vocation has always been to foster collaboration among nations — demonstrated during its G20 presidency last year and continues to demonstrate through its presidencies of the BRICS and COP30 this year: that it is possible to find common ground even in adverse scenarios. There is an urgent need to recommit to diplomacy and rebuild the foundations of true multilateralism — one capable of answering the outcry of a humanity fearful for its future. Only then can we stop passively watching the rise of inequality, the senselessness of war, and the destruction of our planet. * Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is the president of Brazil. This article was originally published at ** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL, Independent Media or The African.
