On the Significance of US Sanctions on the UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese: Three Former UN Special Rapporteurs Weigh In

Recently, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio imposed sanctions on the UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, saying, “The United States has repeatedly condemned and objected to biased and malicious activities of Albanese that have long made her unfit for service as a Special Rapporteur.”  Today we are joined by three of Albanese’s predecessors—John Dugard, Richard Falk, and Michael Lynk, who talk about what these sanctions mean. They trace the United States’ and Israel’s longstanding attacks on not only Special Rapporteurs on Palestine, but the very claims to Palestinian rights. This latest instance is a particularly egregious attack on the UN and international law. We end with a plea to the international community to come to the aid of the Palestinian people, who are suffering famine, disease, and warfare of immense proportions.

John Dugard SC, Emeritus Professor of Law, Universities of the Witwatersrand and Leiden; Member of Institut de Droit International; ; Director of Lauterpacht Centre for International Law, Cambridge (1995-1997); Judge ad hoc  International Court of Justice (2000-2018); Member of UN International Law Commission (1997 -2011); UN Special Rapporteur on Situation of Human Rights in Occupied Palestinian Territory (2001-2008); Legal Counsel, South Africa v Israel (Genocide Convention).

Richard Falk is Albert G. Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University (1961-2001) and Chair of Global Law, Faculty of Law, Queen Mary University London. Since 2002 has been a Research Fellow at the Orfalea Center of Global and International Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Between 2008 and 2014 he served as UN Special Rapporteur on Israeli Violations of Human Rights in Occupied Palestine.

Falk has advocated and written widely about ‘nations’ that are captive within existing states, including Palestine, Kashmir, Western Sahara, Catalonia, Dombas.

Falk has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize several times since 2008.

Michael Lynk was a member of the Faculty of Law, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada between 1999 and his retirement in 2022. He taught courses in labour, human rights, disability, constitutional and administrative law. He served as Associate Dean of the Faculty between 2008-11. He became Professor Emeritus in 2023.

In March 2016, the United Nations Human Rights Council unanimously selected Professor Lynk for a six-year term as the 7th Special Rapporteur for the human rights situation in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967. He completed his term in April 2022.

He has written about his UN experiences in a 2022 book co-authored with Richard Falk and John Dugard, two of his predecessors as UN special rapporteurs: Protecting Human Rights in Occupied Palestine: Working Through the United Nations (Clarity Press).

Professor Lynk’s academic scholarship and his United Nations reports have been cited by the Supreme Court of Canada, the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court and the United Nations General Assembly.