Amal
Clooney

Amal Clooney is co-founder, along with her husband George, of the Clooney Foundation for Justice. She is also a barrister specializing in international law and human rights who represents victims of human rights violations in national and international courts. She represents clients before the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court, 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. 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.

Ms Clooney 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.

Ms Clooney 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 currently represents Maria Ressa, a Nobel Peace Prize winning journalist who faces decades behind bars for her work in the Philippines. In 2020 Ms Clooney was the recipient of the Gwen Ifill Award for ‘extraordinary and sustained achievement in the cause of press freedom’ from the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Ms. Clooney 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 has co-authored the leading textbooks  The Right to a Fair Trial in International Law and Freedom of Speech in International Law, published by Oxford University Press. Ms Clooney holds law degrees from Oxford University and New York University School of Law and prior to joining the London bar, she practiced as a litigation attorney at Sullivan & Cromwell LLP in New York.