UN rapporteur Francesca Albanese has lambasted foreign secretary David Lammy for saying it is premature to call Gaza a genocide, adding that politicians are “making up arguments to justify Israel’s conduct”.

Lammy, a former barrister, told the Commons in late October that legal terms such as genocide “must be determined by international courts”, referring to South Africa’s case against Israel at the international court of justice (ICJ). In an interview with Novara Media, Albanese, a human rights lawyer of over two decades’ experience, said Lammy was “wrong”.

“It’s not true that you need a judicial body to determine that a genocide is happening,” she said.

“When there is the possibility and plausibility that a genocide is being committed – hence the ongoing ICJ and ICC cases – then the obligations of the UN genocide convention are triggered.”

Albanese added that western powers showed no reluctance to use the term genocide in other contexts before a legal ruling, citing former US secretary of state, Anthony Blinken, who recently called the war in Sudan a genocide. “Is it only a genocide when it’s convenient for them?” she asked.

“This hypocrisy is so in our faces that people can no longer ignore it,” she added.

The foreign secretary has been approached for comment.

Though genocide experts had been describing it as such since the very earliest days of the war, Albanese was among the first diplomats to call Israel’s actions in Gaza a genocide. In March last year, she said there were “reasonable grounds” to conclude that Israel was committing genocide. Her findings echoed that of the ICJ’s two months earlier, which stated that Israel’s actions “plausibly” breached the UN genocide convention.

Despite its normalisation among international lawyers and genocide experts, the term genocide has been stubbornly refused by politicians and media outlets around the world.

In October, prime minister Keir Starmer boasted, “I have never described what is going on in Gaza as genocide”, following former US president Joe Biden’s insistence in May that the war in Gaza “is not genocide”. The world’s two largest progressive media outlets, including the New York Times and Guardian, ban the term with varying degrees of explicitness, while former BBC employees have pointed out that presenters will always push back when guests float the term.

Earlier this month, Novara Media revealed that a group of senior BBC employees had written to executives asking that the BBC apply consistency to the description of Gaza and other genocides.

“We would like to draw your attention to the [BBC] coverage around a broadly analogous case: the 2020 ICJ ruling ordering Myanmar to prevent the genocide of the Rohingya population. The phrase ‘a campaign of what the UN has described as a possible genocide launched by the Burmese military’ features in a number of articles pertaining to this story, providing our audience with critical context.”

By contrast, the staff continued that when it came to Palestine, “the BBC is overwhelmingly referring only to the ‘conflict’ or ‘war’ in Gaza, with no reference to the ICJ [ruling of plausible genocide].”

In response to staff, BBC News global director Jonathan Munro refuted any analogy between conflicts, adding: “Whether or not Israel has committed genocide is still being assessed by the ICJ and could take years.” Albanese rejects this logic.

“First of all, the genocide convention doesn’t say that it must be established by a judge. Genocide is defined by article 2 of the convention and there are obligations to prevent, stop and punish. It’s not even necessary to have genocidal acts committed. The incitement to genocide is sufficient to trigger the obligations of the genocide convention,” she told Novara Media.

Albanese warns of the dire consequences to international and geopolitical stability if Israel continues to act with impunity, enabled by the western political and media establishment.

“Israel is imposing a new way of interpreting law applicable to conflict, a world without protections for civilians. What will now stop others from saying that there are alleged weapons under every hospital and every bed?”, she asked.

“Even if Israel stopped committing crimes today, it would have already put the entire human rights system in danger.”

Albanese says that her work as rapporteur has changed her. “I have become a different person since the start of my job,” she told Novara Media. “The livestream[ed footage of the genocide] has … shaken many of my convictions. I was so naive: I really believed that the international and western system would have reacted to what we’ve seen.”

Yet Albanese insisted she still had faith in the international legal system to hold Israel to account, even as the wheels of justice turn slowly. “I know the limits of international law but I still believe in peaceful means of conflict resolution and prevention. So I want to make the system work, but I know that it will take a longer time than normal to fix it – and meanwhile, many more people will die.”

Albanese is the 8th person, and first woman, to occupy the role of UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, a mandate established by the UN in 1993. While former rapporteurs took strides in shifting global perception of the occupied territories – John Dugard was the first diplomat to describe Israel as an apartheid state in 2005, for example – none have drawn as much global attention, praise and opprobrium as Albanese.

Speaking to Novara Media, Albanese said she understands why she has become such a lightning rod for criticism. “People are not used to seeing a UN staff member, like me, speaking the truth in very normal, undiplomatic language. But the truth can be revolutionary and undiplomatic when diplomacy is used as a cloak for crimes.” That said, she added, “I sound quite conservative compared to many other voices in this space.”

Israeli and US officials have attacked Albanese on several occasions, often smearing her as antisemitic. In July, former US ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield tweeted: “There is no place for antisemitism from UN-affiliated officials tasked with promoting human rights.”

Asked how she deals with accusations of antisemitism, she said: “Ignoring them.”

“I will not give time to people who use the label of antisemitism to attack those who criticise Israel for its appalling human rights records – those people are not concerned with addressing real antisemitism, which is something that very much exists and is revolting,” she said.

However, Albanese admitted that her commitment to her work has come at a high personal cost – not least for her husband and two children.

While she does not claim to feel safe, Albanese said that she feels above these fears. “I don’t mind the risks, I’m serious. I have two young kids, so it’s heavy for me to say that. My husband and I have said that, if something happens, there would be consequences, no matter what. As a result, I can walk down the street [without fear].”

Read Novara Media’s full interview with Francesca Albanese here.