Callamard was the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, appointed by the UN Human Rights Council resolution A/HRC/RES/35/15 of 22 June 2017 for a 3 years mandate and finishing on 31 March 2021. In 2019 she led the human rights inquiry into the assassination of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Her findings were presented to the UN Human Rights Council in June 2019. After the report was published, she said that a senior Saudi official twice threatened to have her killed if she was not reined in by the UN.