Francesca Albanese Author

Francesca Albanese is an international lawyer, specialized 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. An affiliate scholar at the Institute for the Study of International Migration at Georgetown University, Albanese is the author of Palestinian Refugees in International Law (Oxford University Press, 2020, with Lex Takkenberg) and J’Accuse (Fuoriscena, 2024). Her academic works cover various aspects of the Question of Palestine, the legal situation in Israel/Palestine, and Palestinian forced displacement. Albanese is responsible for the research and legal assistance programme 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. She has worked with various international organizations, including the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). As Special Rapporteur, she has published numerous legal opinions and several major reports on violation of the law of self-determination in the oPt (2022), the widespread and systematic mass deprivation of liberty of Palestinians (2023), violated childhood in the oPt (2023), and genocide (2024a, 2024b, 2025). Mandy Turner has been researching and writing about Palestine and Israel for 25 years. She has worked at the London School of Economics, University of Kent, University of Westminster, University College London, University of Bradford, the CBRL Kenyon Institute in Jerusalem, University of Manchester, and as a journalist. She has edited or co-edited four books, three special issues of journals, and has published nearly 100 book chapters and articles. She currently holds positions as senior researcher with the critical network Security in Context, the development think tank ODI, and the International State Crime Initiative at Queen Mary University of London. Mandy Turner has been researching and writing about Palestine and Israel for 25 years. She has worked at the London School of Economics, University of Kent, University of Westminster, University College London, University of Bradford, the CBRL Kenyon Institute in Jerusalem, University of Manchester, and as a journalist. She has edited or co-edited four books, three special issues of journals, and has published nearly 100 book chapters and articles. She currently holds positions as senior researcher with the critical network Security in Context, the development think tank ODI, and the International State Crime Initiative at Queen Mary University of London. Lex Takkenberg a Dutch National, is Senior Advisor on the Question of Palestine at ARDD (Arab Renaissance for Democracy and Development) and freelance lecturer at the University of Vienna. From 1989 until 2019, he worked in various field and headquarters positions with UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, most recently at its Amman headquarters as the agency’s first Chief Ethics Officer. He was previously UNRWA’s General Counsel, Director of Operations, and (Deputy) Field Director in Gaza and Syria. Before joining UNRWA, he was the Legal Officer of the Dutch Refugee Council (1983–1989). He obtained a Doctorate in International Law from the University of Nijmegen, the Netherlands. His book - The Status of Palestinian Refugees in International Law – is co-authored with Francesca Albanese (Oxford University Press, 2020). Richard Falk was formerly the UN special rapporteur to Palestine. His unparalleled scholarship on Israel/Palestine is informed by a deep commitment to humanist thought and an optimism for the future of the Palestinian struggle. He is Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University and a Research Fellow in Global Studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara. He is the author of over twenty books including Palestine's Horizon (Pluto, 2017) and Chaos and Counterrevolution (Zed, 2015). John Dugard SC is an Emeritus Professor of Law at the 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 the situation of human rights in Palestinian territories occupied since 1967 (2001–2008); and Legal Counsel, South Africa v. Israel (Genocide Convention). Michael Lynk taught at the Faculty of Law, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada from 1999 until his retirement in 2022. He taught courses in labour, human rights, disability, constitutional and administrative law. He served as Associate Dean of the Faculty (2008–2011) and became Professor Emeritus in 2023. Lynk has published widely in the areas of Canadian labour law, human rights law and international law. He is the co-author of Trade Union Law in Canada (Thomson Reuters, 1995) and formerly a revising co-author of Employment Law in Canada (5th edn) (Lexis Nexis). In March 2016, the United Nations Human Rights Council unanimously selected Lynk for a six-year term as the 7th Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967 and he completed his term in April 2022. He has written about his UN experiences in a 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, 2022). Lynk’s academic scholarship and his UN reports have been cited by the Supreme Court of Canada, the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court and the UN General Assembly.