US appeals court maintains sanctions on UN Palestine rights expert News
Fotografía oficial de la Presidencia de Colombia, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
US appeals court maintains sanctions on UN Palestine rights expert

The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has ruled that sanctions against Francesca Albanese, an Italian human rights lawyer and UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Palestine, will remain in place while her legal challenge continues.

In July 2025, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the sanctions under Executive Order 14203, citing Albanese’s calls for International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and her efforts to hold global companies accountable for their alleged involvement in atrocities in the occupied Palestinian territories. These actions were part of her broader advocacy condemning Israel’s military operations in Gaza, which she and other human rights experts have described as genocidal.

Rubio alleged that Albanese attempted to prompt the International Criminal Court to “investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute nationals of the United States or Israel, without the consent of those two countries.” As a result, the Office of Foreign Assests Control listed Albanese as a specifically designated national, freezing her credit cards, bank accounts, and other assets while barring US persons from engaging with her. The sanctions have also made it difficult for her to travel, preventing her from visiting her daughter—a US citizen—in the United States. Her daughter now faces potential criminal consequences for remaining connected to her mother—a sanctioned individual under US law.

Albanese’s husband, Massimiliano Cali, along with their daughter, filed a lawsuit alleging that the US sanctions violate her First Amendment rights. While a district court granted a preliminary injunction, the US government appealed the ruling.

In a per curiam opinion, the appellate court partially stayed the injunction pending appeal, allowing the sanctions to be enforced again.

In a concurring opinion, Judge Gregory Kastas suggested that Albanese’s free speech argument may fail, stating that First Amendment protections do not apply to the speech of “non-resident aliens” abroad, as “foreign citizens outside US territory do not possess rights under the US Constitution.” Judge Kastas also noted that “equitable considerations,” such as foreign policy and national security interests, favored granting the stay.

UN Watch, a non-governmental organization that monitors the UN, reported that the concurring opinion indicates that “Albanese’s core First Amendment theory may fail altogether.”

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