• UN envoy Albanese along with top jurists and ICC officials faces sanctions, asset freezes, and banking blackouts after she accused major US firms of helping Israel’s genocide in Gaza
• Experts find use of terror watchlist to silence Gaza genocide investigators ‘shocking’

MODENA: Marked confidential, letters went out to some of America’s most powerful companies in the spring of last year warning that they might soon be named in a United Nations report for contributing to gross violations of human rights by Israel in Gaza.

Written by Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur for Pal­estine, the letters targeted more than a dozen major US firms, including Alphabet, Amazon, Caterpillar, Che­vron, Hewlett Packard, IBM, Lock­heed Martin, Microsoft and Palantir.

She warned executives they faced potential criminal liability for “indirectly supporting” genocide, forced displacement and starvation.

The missives so alarmed the corporations that at least two sought help from the White House, according to a Reuters investigation.

Consequently, the Trump administration sanctioned Albanese and several International Criminal Court (ICC) officials, adding them to the US Treasury Department’s Specially Designated Nationals list alongside suspected terrorists and drug traffickers.

“This is unjust, unfair, and persecutorial,” Albanese said in an interview in Modena, Italy. “I’m being punished because of my human rights work”.

The crackdown counters the ICC’s November 2024 arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The targeting of Albanese and the ICC provides a vivid portrait of President Donald Trump’s widening assault on international bodies.

Despite UN insistence that Albanese had diplomatic immunity, Washington imposed the sanctions for her “extreme and unfounded” accusations and for urging the ICC to investigate American companies.“We will not tolerate these campaigns of political and economic warfare,” the State Department said.

Legal experts warn this approach sets a “dangerous precedent” by disregarding standard diplomatic protections.

“It’s shocking that someone’s human rights work could be seen as so dangerous that they would be thought of as akin to a terrorist,” said Margaret Satterthwaite, the UN special rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers.

Deep divisions existed within the US government regarding the measures. While career diplomats urged restraint, senior Trump appointees pressed for tougher actions.

The plan was hatched following Trump’s re-election, intended in part to head off attempts to hold US officials accountable for military actions.

At a March meeting, State Department officials weighed limited penalties, but David Milstein, senior advisor to the US ambassador to Israel, reportedly accused officials of “slow-walking” Trump’s order. Mr Milstein urged the administration to sanction the entire court.

The administration’s hostility is part of a broader foreign policy shift aimed at weakening international bodies deemed threats to US sovereignty or business interests.

Washington currently owes more than $2.1 billion in mandatory dues to the UN, pushing the body toward financial collapse. Trump has also launched a “Board of Peace” with himself as leader, challenging the UN’s diplomatic role.

The sanctions had swift consequences. Albanese and senior ICC figures saw bank accounts closed and credit cards cancelled. Albanese’s US assets are frozen, including a Washington, DC, condo valued at about $700,000. Under US law, the property cannot be sold or rented.

Security has also become a concern. Albanese said she has received threats, forcing the UN to tighten security for her family in Tunisia.

US officials expressed little sympathy. During a Hanukkah celebration, US Ambassador Mike Waltz addressed the restrictions.

“I’m glad she can’t get a credit card and I’m glad she can’t get a visa to come to the United States,” Waltz said.

The sanctions have caused collateral damage to other judicial inquiries and also forced American legal counsel to stop representing Palestinian human rights groups providing evidence to the court.

The crackdown is extensive and sometimes retroactive. On Aug 20, the US sanctioned Canadian Judge Kimberly Prost for a 2020 ruling authorising an investigation into US personnel in Afghanistan, even tho­ugh that probe is currently inactive.

“I was somewhat surprised that I would be sanctioned for something I had done five years ago,” Prost said, calling her inclusion on a list of people implicated in terrorism “psychologically difficult to accept”.

US sanctions against the ICC are clearly an effort to “kneecap an institution”, said Nancy Combs, an international law professor at William & Mary Law School.

She described it as a component of the Trump administration’s worldview that Americans benefit when “not constrained by a bunch of namby-pamby international norms”.

Published in Dawn, February 7th, 2026