Francesca Albanese: 'Anatomy of a Genocide' and the Reports of the UN Special Rapporteur

Francesca Albanese, an Italian scholar of international law, was appointed by the UN Human Rights Council in March 2022 and took up the unpaid, independent mandate on 1 May 2022. In March 2024 she presented to the Council the report Anatomy of a Genocide (A/HRC/55/73), which analyzed five months of Israeli military operations in Gaza following the 7 October 2023 attacks. Its summary concluded:

“By analysing the patterns of violence and Israeli policies in its onslaught on Gaza, the present report concludes that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating that Israel has committed genocide has been met.”

It was the first such finding by a UN mandate holder, and she followed it in October 2024 with a report to the General Assembly, Genocide as Colonial Erasure (A/79/384). Israel, which does not cooperate with the mandate and has denied Albanese entry to the occupied territory, rejected the findings and accused her of bias; she has also faced sanctions and calls for her removal from the United States and Israel, while numerous states, jurists, and human rights organizations have cited her analysis in court filings and policy debates. Special Rapporteurs are independent experts whose reports represent their own legal assessments, not the official position of the United Nations.

Context

• Anatomy of a Genocide — Report of the Special Rapporteur (A/HRC/55/73) — UN Question of Palestine
• Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967 — OHCHR