After the US government placed sanctions on the United Nations\u2019 special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, her life turned upside down.<\/p>\n
Credit cards stopped working, she told Al Jazeera. A hotel reservation booked by the European Parliament was cancelled. Medical insurance was denied. For Albanese, the consequences of her work on Israel\u2019s genocide against the Palestinian people of Gaza were not just professional \u2014 they were personal, too.<\/p>\n list of 4 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n \u201cWe are turned into non-persons,\u201d she said at the Doha Forum, calling the sanctions imposed against her \u201cunlawful\u201d under international law.<\/p>\n \u201cBut again, for me, it\u2019s important that people understand the extent \u2026 the United States, Israel and others would go to silence the voice of justice, the voice of human rights,\u201d Albanese said.<\/p>\n As leaders, diplomats, and legal experts gathered in Qatar\u2019s capital for the Doha Forum this weekend under the theme \u201cJustice in Action: Beyond Promises to Progress\u201d, the crisis in Gaza dominated discussions.<\/p>\n Allegations of genocide against Israel, repeated vetoes blocking UN ceasefire resolutions, and growing pressure on international justice mechanisms have made Gaza a test case for the rules-based international order, raising questions about whether international law is capable of providing justice.<\/p>\n According to Albanese\u2019s legal assessments, Israel\u2019s conduct in its war on Gaza constitutes a genocide, a term that prominent human rights groups such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Israel\u2019s B\u2019Tselem have also used.<\/p>\n When announcing the sanctions on Albanese, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio accused her of waging a \u201ccampaign of political and economic warfare against the United States and Israel\u201d. She says the allegation is baseless.<\/p>\n \u201cI have been subjected to smear campaigns,\u201d she said, adding that US officials have accused her of being an anti-Semite, of supporting violence, and of failing to condemn the crimes committed on October 7 against Israeli civilians.<\/p>\n \u201cIt has created a sense of insecurity around me. I have received threats from all corners,\u201d Albanese said.<\/p>\n In addition to targeting Albanese, the US imposed sanctions in August on nine judges and prosecutors of the International Criminal Court (ICC), including two European citizens, after the court began investigating alleged Israeli war crimes in Gaza.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is mafia-style intimidation that we are subjected to, just for doing our job,\u201d Albanese noted, warning that sanctions and intimidation of legal experts set a dangerous precedent.<\/p>\n \u201cThere will be that pressure [on ICC judges and legal experts] that, if I go on this route, this is going to be scrutinised. This is the idea, to make it impossible for the organisation, for the ICC to work,\u201d she cautioned.<\/p>\n \u201cImagine that every US person interacting with us, someone who works in the US or is a citizen, could go to jail for up to 20 years. It creates a chilling effect.\u201d<\/p>\n In November 2024, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged \u201cwar crimes\u201d.<\/p>\n The US called the move \u201coutrageous\u201d, and while the United Kingdom and Canada said they would adhere to international law, they did not make clear if they would uphold the warrant.<\/p>\n Many Western countries have not described Israel\u2019s actions in Gaza as genocide and have continued to send the country arms, despite growing allegations of war crimes occurring in Gaza.<\/p>\n Albanese emphasised that nations continuing to transfer arms are failing in their legal obligations.<\/p>\n \u201cThey have the obligation to prevent a genocide that has already been recognised as plausible in January 2024 by the International Court of Justice,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Janine Di Giovanni, co-founder of the Reckoning Project, which documents war crimes in Sudan, Ukraine and Gaza, said the position of many Western states reeked of a glaring \u201cdouble standard\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is one set of laws and rules that pertain to Ukraine \u2026 and another set for brown and Black people,\u201d she said, pointing to the ICC\u2019s historical focus on African leaders and the failure of Western powers to hold Israel accountable.<\/p>\n Di Giovanni directed her criticism at European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, saying the former Estonian prime minister had been \u201cnegligent\u201d when it came to Gaza.<\/p>\n \u201cShe points out over and over again what [Russian President] Putin has done in Ukraine, but not a word about Gaza,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s the EU foreign policy chief. She has a responsibility to point out Israel\u2019s criminality.\u201d<\/p>\n With multilateral institutions and the international law system coming under growing pressure from nation-states, Albanese said that international law does work and that \u201cwe need to make it work\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cI often make the example, if a cure doesn\u2019t work, would you trash all medicine? No,\u201d she asserted.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is the first genocide in history that has awakened a conscience, a global conscience, and has the potential to be stopped.\u201d<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Reckoning Project\u2019s Di Giovanni said the UN General Assembly could be \u201cactivated to work at a higher level and a more effective level than what they\u2019re doing, while the Security Council is blocked\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cBut maybe this shows us that we need to have a greater reform for how the Security Council works,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Di Giovanni added that it was crucial to address the \u201cextraordinary heinous crimes that Netanyahu and others\u201d have committed, or else it would send a message that \u201cimpunity is rampant\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cWithout accountability, there is no global security,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n After the US government placed sanctions on the United Nations\u2019 special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, her life turned upside down. Credit cards stopped working, she told Al Jazeera. A hotel reservation booked by the European Parliament was cancelled. Medical insurance was denied. For Albanese, the consequences of her work on Israel\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4684,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle-east-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4683"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4683\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
\u2018Sense of insecurity around me\u2019<\/h2>\n
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Western hesitance<\/h2>\n
Is international law still relevant?<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"