A United Nations official has won a significant legal skirmish with the United States government, after it sanctioned her for condemning the Israeli government and advocating legal action against it. But her conflict with the American authorities is far from over.
The U.S. government on Wednesday removed the official, Francesca Albanese, from its sanctions list, complying with a federal judge’s order last week in the District of Columbia. The judge, Richard J. Leon of the District Court, made a preliminary finding that the sanctions violated Ms. Albanese’s First Amendment right to free speech, but the case will continue to play out in court.
Ms. Albanese is the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza, appointed to monitor and report on the human rights situation there. She has been vociferous in her criticism of Israel and its treatment of Palestinians in those territories.
Last July, Secretary of State Marco Rubio imposed sanctions on her, saying that she “directly engaged with the International Criminal Court in efforts to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute nationals of the United States or Israel, without the consent of those two countries.” Neither country has signed the treaty that created the I.C.C., or recognizes its authority. Mr. Rubio said she had urged the international court to prosecute U.S. companies that work with Israel.
In 2024, the court issued arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and a former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, alleging war crimes in Gaza.
Judge Leon wrote in his opinion granting the injunction that Ms. Albanese’s statements did not appear to lawfully subject her to the government’s punishment, saying that “the only way” Albanese had engaged with the I.C.C. was “by offering her non-binding opinion and recommendation — in other words, by speaking!”
“Not only do defendants seek to regulate Albanese’s speech, they want to regulate her speech because of the ‘idea or message expressed,’” he wrote. The injunction signals a likelihood the underlying case against the government might succeed.
The Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The case challenges the notion that criticism constitutes a national security threat. The sanctions against Ms. Albanese, who is Italian, came amid a broader Trump administration effort to retaliate against critics of U.S. foreign policy and of Israel, as well as pro-Palestinian activists. It also imposed sanctions on Palestinian nongovernmental organizations and on judges and prosecutors at the International Criminal Court.
U.N. policy barred Ms. Albanese from suing the government in her own name, so the lawsuit was brought by her family, including her husband, Massimiliano Cali, a World Bank economist, and a daughter born in the United States, who was not identified by name. Their lawyers contend that they have standing to sue based on extensive contact with the United States, where they own property and previously worked.
“This is an important legal victory and I am glad my family and I followed our instinct and trusted the U.S. justice system,” Ms. Albanese said in a statement to The New York Times on Thursday. She said the decision reaffirmed “that the rule of law can stop the abuse of power” and showed “why an independent judiciary is so critical.”
Michel Paradis, a national security law expert and one of the lawyers representing Ms. Albanese’s family, said in an interview on Thursday that the case has broad consequences far beyond any individual or their situation.
In recent years, multiple administrations have used tools meant to address terrorism, corruption and other genuine national security threats as exceptions to constitutional protections and to equate speech with danger, Mr. Paradis said.
“There has been a trend and tendency to see national security as carte blanche,” he said. “National security has been increasingly used talismanically to allow the government to go after people for what they say.”
But Ms. Albanese noted that her sense of relief may be short-lived. The government has appealed Judge Leon’s order and on Thursday filed a motion to stay the injunction he had granted as the appeal is litigated. In other words, she could end up back on the sanctions list again sooner or later.
“Today I have a sense of relief that is slowly sinking in, even if I am under no illusions that the battle is over,” Ms. Albanese said, noting the appeal and adding “we may expect a long, onerous road ahead.”
