In November 2006, then-UN secretary-general Kofi Annan called the special rapporteurs “the crown jewel of the UN human rights system.” Two decades later, a secretary-general has finally said what UN Watch has documented for years. In an interview with the Financial Times, António Guterres admitted that “many” of these so-called independent experts are “totally out of control.”
The UN spokesman immediately tried to walk it back. He said Guterres only meant that he cannot control them because they are independent, not that their output is the problem. But if his point was about process, Guterres would have referred to all the rapporteurs. Instead, he said “many” are totally out of control.
Either way, the rapporteurs’ output is the problem. And Guterres knows it. In February 2024, he privately called Francesca Albanese, the pro-Hamas UN rapporteur on Palestine, a “horrible person.” His office later conceded, “We don’t agree with much of what she says.”
In July 2025, after the US announced sanctions against Albanese, she was asked if Guterres spoke with her. She replied: “Never! Never heard from him. Not now, not before. And I don’t think after.”
Clearly, the secretary-general doesn’t like her. But private disdain is not public leadership. Guterres has never specifically condemned Albanese, or any other rapporteur – leaving their abuses unanswered, and the UN’s credibility to bear the cost.
The Human Rights Council maintains 59 “special procedures” mandates, each charged with monitoring a global theme or a specific region. Their findings are not legally binding, but when a headline declares “UN experts said,” most readers hear the United Nations speaking. They hear the voice of international law and morality. A footnote that the rapporteurs are appointed by a tainted political body, and represent only themselves, rarely travels with the quote.
Ideological capture
This year, UN Watch published a 100-page investigation, “From Watchdogs to Ideologues,” examining 13 thematic mandates – more than a fifth of the system. We reviewed their UN reports, press releases, country visits, social media, and funding. The pattern revealed is not an occasional tilt, but ideological capture.
For example, from October 7, 2023 through March 2026, special rapporteurs issued 148 statements targeting Israel – more than twice the number on Russia’s war against Ukraine, and more than six times the number on Sudan’s bloody civil war.
No case is more grotesque than Albanese. She is the first UN rapporteur in history to be condemned for antisemitism, Holocaust inversion, or ethical breaches by France, Germany, Canada, the Netherlands, Italy, and others. She said America is controlled by “the Jewish lobby.”
On October 7, as Hamas was still massacring Israelis, she said the violence “must be put in context” – and blamed Israeli “aggression.” Recently, after I called her Hamas’s de facto spokesperson at the UN, she demanded that Elon Musk censor me for “outright defamation.” Truth is an absolute defense, so I invited her to sue.
Then there is Reem Alsalem, the UN rapporteur on violence against women. Cynically, she has used her mandate to erase Israeli women.
Her first post after October 7 amplified Albanese’s denial of Hamas’s crimes, and warned about “misinformation.” She has never expressed solidarity with the women tortured and dragged into Gaza. In November 2025, she claimed that “no independent investigation found that rape took place on October 7”– this after the UN’s own Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict issued a March 2024 mission report documenting those crimes.
Alsalem and Albanese are not outliers. They are the brand.
Alena Douhan, who has now completed six years as rapporteur on “unilateral coercive measures” – portraying Western sanctions on dictatorships as a violation of human rights – took $1.3 million for her work from China, Russia, and Qatar. She duly produced reports portraying those regimes, plus Venezuela, Syria, Cuba, and Zimbabwe, as victims.
Ben Saul, a University of Sydney law professor who serves as the rapporteur on counterterrorism, accepted $150,000 for his work from China. Coincidentally, he has never issued a single report on China locking up a million Uyghurs in camps – all done under the pretext of counterterrorism.
Finally, there is George Katrougalos, the expert on a “democratic and equitable international order.” He took $100,000 from Beijing, appeared at a Xi Jinping book launch, and met Iranian officials to lament American and Israeli “crimes.”
The UN Code of Conduct requires mandate-holders to establish facts from credible sources that have been duly cross-checked. Instead, many recycle NGO allegations, anonymous allegations, and social-media blood libels. Once those claims appear in a UN report, courts and newsrooms cite them as evidence. That is evidentiary laundering.
In theory, the Human Rights Council oversees the rapporteurs. Yet in practice, its member states – which include China, Qatar, and Cuba – have never held any rapporteur to account. Multilateral bodies typically leave a gaping void unless someone shows leadership and steps in.
When Albanese’s predecessor Richard Falk made reprehensible statements – blaming the Boston Marathon bombings on the US and Israel, and supporting 9/11 conspiracy theories – Ban Ki-moon, then secretary-general, repeatedly condemned the rapporteur. That sent a message.
By contrast, Guterres has never once specifically condemned any rapporteur. His failure of leadership is a key reason why many are now “totally out of control.”
End the impunity
Democracies need to step into the void. They should stop pretending this can be fixed from inside a council dominated by dictatorships. They should form a coalition that publicly rates mandate-holders, opposes unfit appointments before they are rubber-stamped, and bans all earmarked funding from governments and political foundations.
Until that ban exists, every dollar, every funded staffer, and every sponsored trip should be disclosed in full. Mandates invented to attack Western sanctions, or to perpetually investigate the Jewish state with guilt presumed in advance, should be terminated, not renewed.
Guterres said the quiet part out loud. The crown jewels are out of control. The question is whether the countries that pay for the showcase will keep pretending they shine.■
Hillel C. Neuer is the executive director of UN Watch in Geneva.