Francesca Albanese

Biography

Francesca Albanese is an Italian legal scholar and human rights expert whose work has shaped contemporary debates on international law, forced displacement, and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. She has served as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories since 2022, becoming the first woman to hold the position. Her tenure has drawn international attention for its detailed investigations into the human rights situation in Gaza and the West Bank, as well as for the political controversies surrounding her findings. Albanese was born in Ariano Irpino in southern Italy. She studied law at the University of Pisa, graduating with honours, and later completed a Master of Laws in human rights at SOAS University of London. Early in her career she worked for more than a decade with several United Nations bodies, including the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the UN Relief and Works Agency. During these years she advised governments and humanitarian organisations across the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia-Pacific, developing a deep expertise in the legal protection of refugees, migrants, and populations living under occupation. Her academic work has continued in parallel with her international engagements. She is an Affiliate Scholar at Georgetown University’s Institute for the Study of International Migration and a senior advisor with the Arab Renaissance for Democracy and Development, where she co-founded the Global Network on the Question of Palestine. Her publications include the widely cited Palestinian Refugees in International Law, co-authored with Lex Takkenberg and published by Oxford University Press in 2020. Albanese was appointed United Nations Special Rapporteur in May 2022 and confirmed for a second term in 2025. In this role she has produced several prominent reports examining the legal and humanitarian implications of Israel’s occupation. Her analyses have addressed issues such as mass displacement, arbitrary detention, settler violence, and the increasingly severe conditions in Gaza. In March 2024 she presented the report titled “Anatomy of a Genocide” to the UN Human Rights Council, concluding that Israel’s actions in Gaza met the threshold of genocidal acts under the Genocide Convention. The report called for sanctions, an arms embargo, and renewed international accountability mechanisms, and it became one of the most widely discussed UN documents of the year.