The family of U.N. human rights investigator Francesca Albanese sued the Trump administration on Feb. 26 in U.S. federal court in Washington, arguing that U.S. sanctions imposed last year on Albanese for criticizing Israel’s policies during the Israel-Hamas war violate the First Amendment. The filing says the penalties have had concrete impacts on the family’s daily life and ability to work, including the ability to access their home in the nation’s capital.
The lawsuit was filed by Albanese’s husband and minor child in the U.S. District Court in Washington, according to the complaint. It frames Albanese’s criticism as core First Amendment activity tied to how she has described facts she found in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and to her work connected to the International Criminal Court.
In the filing, the family’s argument includes that the case turns on whether the government can sanction a person “ruining their life and the lives of their loved ones” because officials disagree with the person’s recommendations or fear how persuasive they might be. The complaint also references the ICC, which has issued arrest warrants for Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, over allegations of war crimes.
The U.S. Department of State dismissed the lawsuit, calling it “baseless lawfare,” and defended the sanctions as “legal and appropriate.” In response to the suit, the department also said Albanese has “openly supported antisemitism, terrorism” and that she has engaged in lawfare against the United States and its interests, including against major American companies vital to the world economy.
U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said the U.N. is aware of the complaint and “will continue to engage with the U.S. authorities to seek resolution” of the case. Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza, is part of a group of experts chosen by the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva and has been tasked with investigating human rights abuses in the Palestinian territories.
The complaint comes after the Trump administration imposed sanctions on Albanese in July, following an unsuccessful effort to pressure the international body to remove her from her post, according to the report. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit. The U.N. and Albanese’s critics have continued to dispute the scope and character of her findings about the Israel-Hamas war, which both Israel and the United States have strongly denied.
The story also cites Albanese’s earlier comments about the personal effect of the sanctions. In an Associated Press interview last summer, Albanese said her daughter is American, that she had been living in the United States, and that “of course, it’s going to harm me.” She added that she had acted in good faith and said her commitment to justice was “more important than personal interests.”
Israel has also publicly disputed Albanese’s language. Danny Danon, the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, said last year after one of her reports that “she has taken the word ‘genocide,’ born from the ashes of the Holocaust, and turned it into a weapon — not to defend the victims of history, but to attack them.”
Beyond the court case, the report places the dispute in the wider context of the Gaza ceasefire effort and continued fighting. It notes that Israeli strikes have repeatedly disrupted a U.S.-brokered ceasefire deal that began Oct. 10, and it says Gaza’s Health Ministry reported 618 Palestinians killed since the start of the ceasefire, bringing the cumulative toll to 72,082 killed since the start of Israel’s offensive. It also describes the war beginning after Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 251 hostages who were returned to Israel in various ceasefire agreements.
The Associated Press report says that while special rapporteurs do not represent the U.N. and have no formal authority, their reports can increase pressure on countries and can inform prosecutors at the ICC and other venues involved in transnational justice cases.