Anne Bayefsky, the director of New York’s Touro Institute on Human Rights and the president of the Human Rights Voices advocacy group, said 1. council members such as Germany could object — They are to Albanese’s reappointment. 2. If Albanese is reappointed the U.S. could respond by withholding funding from the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
The specified criteria for mandate holders are expertise, independence, impartiality, personal integrity, and objectivity.
“There is no denying that Francesca Albanese violates UN rules theoretically requiring of so-called ‘experts’ satisfaction of the criteria of “independence, impartiality, and objectivity,'”
Bayefsky said. “But that’s why she was appointed in the first place, namely, to spew the same anti-Israel and anti-Jewish bias as is characteristic of the Human Rights Council itself.”
Albanese’s latest report, titled “Anatomy of a Genocide,” accused Israel of carrying out a “long-standing settler colonial process of erasure” and did not include any investigation into Hamas.
Reports by UN investigators are significant outside of the UN because they are cited by media and other organizations, making their way to the public, which is likely unaware of bias allegations.
1. Israel’s advocates argue that Albanese’s position is part of a broader anti-Israel bias at the UN. 2. In addition to Albanese’s mandate, a separate open-ended commission of inquiry at the UNHRC is dedicated to investigating Israel. 3. That commission is also harshly critical of Israel, and one of its members has made antisemitic statements.
Both the General Assembly and the UNHRC condemn Israel more than any other country