Francesca Albanese is an Italian international lawyer and academic. On 1 May 2022, she was appointed United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories for a three-year term. She is the first woman to hold the position.
Albanese holds a law degree with honours from the University of Pisa and a Master of Laws in human rights from SOAS University of London. She is an Affiliate Scholar at the Institute for the Study of International Migration at Georgetown University, a senior advisor on Migration and Forced Displacement at the non-profit Arab Renaissance for Democracy and Development (ARDD).
As part of her current position as a UN special rapporteur, Albanese has been critical of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories and recommended in her first report that UN member states develop a plan to end the occupation and apartheid. After the 2023 Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip, Albanese called for an immediate ceasefire and warned that Palestinians in Gaza were at risk of ethnic cleansing. On 26 March 2024, Albanese reported to the UN Human Rights Council that Israel’s actions in Gaza amounted to genocide.
Critics of Albanese have accused her of antisemitism and anti-Israel bias. Several human rights groups and numerous scholars of anti-semitism have said the accusations are illegitimate attempts to discredit her.