A federal judge blocked the Trump administration from implementing sanctions against United Nations Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese.
According to U.S. District Judge Richard Leon, the Trump administration violated Albanese’s First Amendment rights, as the sanctions targeted her speech criticizing Israel. “If Albanese instead opposed ICC action against U.S. and Israeli nationals, she would not have been designated under E.O. 14203,” he wrote in his opinion, reported by The Hill. “Thus, the effect of Albanese’s designation is to ‘punish’ and thereby ‘suppress disfavored expression.’”
Upon imposing the sanctions in July 2025, Rubio declared that Albanese has participated in “illegitimate and shameful efforts to prompt [the International Criminal Court] action against U.S. and Israeli officials, companies, and executives.”
“Albanese’s campaign of political and economic warfare against the United States and Israel will no longer be tolerated. We will always stand by our partners in their right to self-defense,” Rubio said, adding that the United States “will continue to take whatever actions we deem necessary to respond to lawfare and protect our sovereignty and that of our allies.”
Albanese, appointed in 2022 as the Special Rapporteur on the “occupied Palestinian territories,” has “spewed unabashed antisemitism, expressed support for terrorism, and open contempt for the United States, Israel, and the West,” a press statement on the matter read. The statement adds that Albanese has written “threatening letters to dozens of entities worldwide, including major American companies across finance, technology, defense, energy, and hospitality, making extreme and unfounded accusations and recommending the ICC pursue investigations and prosecutions of these companies and their executives.”
