Human rights lawyer Amal Clooney has represented numerous high-profile clients fighting for their right to freedom of expression, including Canadian-Egyptian journalist Mohamed Fahmy and Azerbaijani investigative reporter Khadija Ismayilova.
Reflecting on the case of prominent Azerbaijani journalist Khadija Ismayilova, Amal Clooney told RFE/RL: I believe it's important to protect an individual journalist against a powerful state that has overstepped. This is about a government that is abusing its power to silence journalists like Khadija, as well as other critics of the ruling regime.
Amal Clooney (née Alamuddin) is a trilingual, award-winning barrister specializing in international law and human rights. She currently works with Doughty Street Chambers, a British firm “renowned for and committed to defending freedom and civil liberties.”
Since 2014, Clooney has received an immense amount of media attention for her marriage to actor George Clooney and her fashion sense. But the British-Lebanese lawyer was renowned in her field long before entertainment tabloids tracked her every outfit – and for good reason.
Clooney has represented high-profile clients including former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko (over her politically-motivated detention), and Wikileaks founder Julian Assange (in extradition proceedings).
Her client profile also includes Canadian-Egyptian journalist Mohamed Fahmy, who returned to Canada in October 2015 after spending two years in an Egyptian prison over ‘terrorism-related’ charges. Numerous IFEX members – particularly Canadian Journalists for Free Expression – advocated for Fahmy’s release. When Fahmy and his colleague Baher Mohamed were pardoned in September 2015, Clooney stated “This is a historic day in Egypt where the government has finally corrected a longstanding injustice, and set two innocent men free.”
In January 2016, it was announced that Clooney would represent the award-winning investigative Azerbaijani journalist Khadija Ismayilova, who had been behind bars since 2014 on what many consider to be politically-motivated charges. She was freed on a suspended prison sentence in May 2016. Many IFEX members, campaigned for Ismayilova’s release, and continue to call for all the charges to be dropped and that she be granted complete freedom.
“It’s important to fight for the right of journalists to tell the world what is happening in their countries,” Clooney told RFE/RL in an e-mail regarding Ismayilova’s case.
In addition to her extensive case profile, Clooney is a member of the Expert Panel of Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative – which seeks to gather evidence of sexual crimes committed in conflict zones. She also represents Yazidi genocide survivors including Nadia Murad, a Yazidi woman who suffered rape and sexual violence at the hands of ISIS, and together they successfully called for the UN and Iraqi government to carry out an investigation into the group’s atrocities. Clooney also represents a victim in the first trial charging an ISIS member with genocide, currently ongoing in Germany.
Clooney is also a visiting professor at Columbia Law School.
In late 2016, Amal and George Clooney set up the Clooney Foundation for Justice, which pursues justice through accountability for international crimes and human rights abuse. The Foundation runs a ‘TrialWatch’ program to monitor trials where human rights are at risk, including trials involving journalists and other vulnerable groups.
In April 2019, the then UK Foreign Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, appointed Clooney his Special Envoy on Media Freedom.She has also been appointed deputy chair of a global High Level Panel of Legal Experts whose role it is to counter draconian laws that hinder journalists from doing their work. The panel is charged with examining legal and policy initiatives that states can adopt in order to better protect press freedom. This work includes: advice to governments on strengthening legal mechanisms; support in the repeal of draconian, free press inhibiting legislation; and promotion of best practice to protect a free media.
Early proposals to be examined by the expert panel were reforms to national media laws that do not comply with international standards, including those in countries where blasphemy is criminalised.
In early 2020, Clooney’s expert panel issued a report recommending targeted sanctions – imposed either unilaterally or by a coalition of states – on officials who arbitrarily detain journalists or inflict other restrictions on freedom of expression.
In 2024, Clooney acted as a special adviser to Karim Khan, chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), as he conducted an investigation into suspected war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Israel and Gaza. This investigation came in the wake of Hamas’s attack on Israeli security forces and civilians on 7 October 2023, and Israel’s massive bombardment of Gaza which, by June 2024, had killed over 37,000 Palestinians (mostly women and children). Following the investigation, Khan applied for arrest warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh.
Illustration by Florian Nicolle
