Amal Clooney

Career

Amal Clooney is a barrister who specializes in international law and human rights. She represents clients before international courts, including the International Criminal Court, the International Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights. Alongside court work, she provides advice to governments and individuals on legal issues in her areas of expertise.

Amal is ranked in the legal directories Legal 500 and Chambers and Partners as a leading barrister in international human rights law, public international law, and international criminal law. She is described as ‘a brilliant legal mind’ who is ‘in a league of her own at the Bar’. The directories spotlight her ‘commanding presence before courts’ and describe her as ‘a dream performer before international tribunals’ with ‘superb advocacy’ that is ‘crystal clear in focus and highly persuasive’. The rankings emphasize her ability to galvanize ‘heads of state, foreign ministers and business … in a way that is very effective’ for victims of human rights abuses. She is also described as being ‘amazing with vulnerable witnesses’ and having a ‘passionate commitment to the law and compassion for the people it serves’. In 2024, Amal was the recipient of a Legal 500 lawyer of the year award in recognition of her outstanding work and contributions in the field of international law.

Amal frequently represents victims of mass atrocities, including genocide and sexual violence. She has acted in many landmark human rights cases in recent years including the world’s first and only trials in which ISIS members have been convicted of genocide against Yazidis. Amal also represents over 800 Yazidis in the first civil case in a U.S. court seeking to hold ISIS financiers responsible for supporting the terror group while it was committing its well-documented genocide. She has represented Armenia in a case involving the Armenian genocide and was counsel to 126 victims of the genocide in Darfur, Sudan, at the International Criminal Court.

Amal also represents political prisoners around the world and has helped to secure the freedom of journalists arbitrarily detained for their work across the globe. She has won numerous awards for this work including of the Gwen Ifill Award for ‘extraordinary and sustained achievement in the cause of press freedom’ from the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Amal has served as a senior advisor to Kofi Annan when he was the UN’s Envoy on Syria, as Counsel to the UN Inquiry on the use of armed drones and as a rapporteur for the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute on independence of the judiciary. She is a member of the UK’s team of experts on preventing sexual violence in conflict zones and the UK Attorney General’s panel of experts on public international law. From 2019-2021 she also served as deputy chair of an International Bar Association Panel of Legal Experts on Media Freedom chaired by former UK Supreme Court President Lord Neuberger.

Before joining the London bar, Amal worked in The Hague at the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and as a prosecutor at the Special Tribunal for Lebanon. She is admitted to the New York Bar and practiced as a litigation attorney at Sullivan & Cromwell LLP in New York.

Amal is an Adjunct Professor at Columbia Law School, a Senior Fellow at the Columbia Law School Human Rights Institute and an Honorary Fellow of St Hugh’s College, Oxford. She is the co-founder of the Clooney Foundation for Justice, which provides free legal support to victims of human rights abuses in over 40 countries.

Professional Memberships

Admitted to the Bar in New York (2002), England & Wales (2010)

Selected Appointments

Amal has also previously been appointed to a number of international human rights investigations and conflict-resolution panels including:

• Special Adviser to the International Criminal Court Prosecutor;

• Member of Task Force on Accountability for Crimes Committed in Ukraine appointed to advise Ukraine on delivering justice for victims of war crimes committed by Russia;

• Senior Adviser to Kofi Annan, Joint Special Envoy of the United Nations and the Arab League on Syria;

• Member of UK Attorney General’s Public International Law Panel of experts;

• Member of Expert Panel on Preventing Sexual Violence formed by UK Foreign Office;

• Deputy Chair of the Independent High-Level Panel on Media Freedom, appointed by former President of the UK Supreme Court.

• UK Special Envoy on Media Freedom (2019-2020), appointed by the former UK Foreign Secretary.

• Counsel to the Inquiry led by UN Special Rapporteur on counter-terrorism and human rights, Ben Emmerson QC, into the use of drones in conflict zones.

• Legal Adviser to the head of the UN commission investigating the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Hariri and other terrorist attacks in Lebanon; and

• Rapporteur for the International Bar Association Human Rights Institute on the independence of the judiciary.

Publications

(Selected)

• Freedom of Speech in International Law, co-edited with D. Neuberger (Oxford University Press, 2024).

• The Right to a Fair Trial in International Law, with P. Webb (Oxford University Press, 2020) (winner of the American Society of International Law 2022 Certificate of Merit)

• Human Rights, chapter in I. Roberts (ed.), Satow’s Diplomatic Practice (8th Edition, Oxford University Press, 2023)

Awards