The U.S. has reinstated Francesca Albanese, a United Nations expert on the Palestinian territories, on its roster of sanctioned individuals, according to a notice published on the U.S. Treasury Department website on Wednesday.
The designation dates back to July 2025, when the U.S. government announced sanctions against Albanese, citing what it described as her efforts to prompt the International Criminal Court to pursue actions against U.S. and Israeli officials, companies and executives. Those measures were temporarily lifted earlier in May after a federal injunction blocked enforcement.
The injunction followed a legal challenge filed by Albanese's husband and daughter. U.S. District Judge Richard Leon in Washington concluded that the Trump administration had likely infringed Albanese's free-speech rights by imposing the sanctions after she publicly criticized Israel's war in Gaza, and he granted the requested temporary relief.
Last Friday, however, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued an administrative stay of Judge Leon's ruling. That stay allows the government to reinstate and enforce Albanese's designation as a sanctioned foreign national while the appeal proceeds.
The appeals court's order characterized the administrative stay as procedural, noting it "should not be construed in any way as a ruling on the merits" of the government's wider request to block the district court injunction during the appeal. The order therefore permits enforcement but does not resolve the underlying legal questions presented by the case.
The sequence of events leaves Albanese's status subject to ongoing litigation. The re-listing on the Treasury website reflects the immediate effect of the appeals court stay; the ultimate outcome will depend on how the appellate court addresses the merits of the government's appeal and any further judicial action.
Contextual summary:
The reinstatement follows a judicial back-and-forth: sanctions imposed in July 2025, temporarily nullified by a district court injunction earlier in May, and then re-enabled by an administrative stay from an appeals panel last Friday. The appeals court explicitly limited its administrative action to procedure and refrained from deciding the substantive legal issues.