International Law and Repression: A conversation with Francesca Albanese
In this episode, International Law and Repression: A Conversation with Francesca Albanese, listen to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967. Francesca speaks about her mandate in the context of the ongoing genocide in Gaza, and the increasing threat to the international legal order. She also shares her experiences of repression and human rights violations she witnessed during her visit to Germany in February 2025.
In conversation with Francesca Albanese are Fiona Thorp, Legal Fellow in the Palestine Team at ECCHR, and Chantal Meloni, Senior Legal Advisor in the International Crimes and Accountability program.
International Law and Repression
As the Special Rapporteur, Francesca is an independent expert appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council to follow and report on the human rights situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. As part of her mandate, she has published reports documenting extensive violations of international humanitarian law and the Genocide Convention.
ECCHR has worked on cases relating to crimes committed by Israeli forces against Palestinian civilians for over a decade. Recently, ECCHR has filed several request for provisional measures against German exports of weapons of war and other military equipment to Israel, which are used in attacks on the Palestinian population in Gaza. We have also compiled a detailed Q&A on the topic of genocide in Gaza and on the arrest warrants against Israeli Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former-Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant .
A/79/384:
Genocide as colonial erasure
This report examines the unfolding horrors in the occupied Palestinian territory.
Biographies
Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967
Francesca Albanese
is an international lawyer, specialised in human rights and the Middle East. Since May 2022, she has served as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967.
Since 2018, Albanese has taught and lectured at various universities in Europe and the Middle East. She is also responsible for the research and legal assistance program on migration and asylum seekers in the Arab world for the think tank Arab Renaissance for Democracy and Development (ARDD), and is a co-founder of the Global Network on the Question of Palestine (GNQP), a coalition of prominent regional and international experts and scholars engaged in the issue of Israel/Palestine.
Throughout her mandate as a Special Rapporteur, Francesca Albanese strives for impartiality and inclusiveness. She emphasizes that true impartiality cannot be either ignorance or indifference. Instead, it involves objectively investigating facts through the lens of international law and recognizing and addressing – instead of denying or ignoring – underlying power imbalance or historical injustices.
Legal Fellow at ECCHR in the International Crimes and Accountability program
Fiona Thorp
is a New Zealand human rights lawyer, with an LL.M. (Hons) from Columbia Law School. She has previously worked in Aotearoa New Zealand as a solicitor in public law litigation, with a focus on human rights and pro bono work, and as a legal and policy adviser at the New Zealand Law Commission. While at Columbia University, she worked with Francesca Albanese in the pursuit of her mandate. She also worked on projects related to decolonizing human rights advocacy, and the draft treaty on crimes against humanity. In October 2024, she joined ECCHR's International Crimes and Accountability Program as a Legal Fellow.
Photo: Nihad Nino Pušija
Senior Legal Advisor for the International Crimes and Accountability program
Chantal Meloni
is an Italian criminal lawyer and professor at the Università degli Studi di Milano Statale, Italy, where she teaches international criminal law. In 2006, she completed her PhD with a thesis on command responsibility in international criminal law. She then worked at the International Criminal Court in The Hague as a legal assistant in chambers. Since 2010, she has collaborated with the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights and has spent several months in Gaza, Palestine. From 2011 to 2014, she was an Alexander von Humboldt fellow at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. She joined ECCHR in September 2015 as Senior Legal Advisor for the International Crimes and Accountability program.
Photo: Nihad Nino Pušija