Amal Clooney is a barrister who specializes in international law and human rights. She 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’. Her contributions have been recognized by the Committee to Protect Journalists, the American Society of International Law, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the United Nations, the World Economic Forum, the Kings Trust and Time Magazine. She also won the Legal 500 Award for international lawyer of the year.  

Amal frequently represents victims of mass atrocities, including genocide and sexual violence. She has acted in many landmark human rights cases, including the world’s first trials in which ISIS members have been convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity. Amal also represents over 800 Yazidi victims of ISIS in the first civil case in a U.S. court seeking to hold ISIS financiers responsible for complicity in ISIS’ terrorist acts. She has represented Armenia in a case involving the Armenian genocide and was counsel to over 100 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. Her work has included defending Reuters journalists who uncovered evidence of genocide in Myanmar, journalists covering protests in Egypt and a leading investigative journalist exposing corruption in Azerbaijan, all of whom were released following her work. She currently represents Nobel laureate Maria Ressa, who faces decades behind bars for her work as a journalist in the Philippines. In 2020, Amal 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. 

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 the UK’s Special Envoy on Media Freedom and as deputy chair of an International Bar Association Panel of Legal Experts, chaired by a former UK Supreme Court President, that produced legal and policy advice on protecting freedom of the press.  

Amal is also a Professor of Practice in International Law at Oxford University’s Blavatnik School of Government and an Honorary Fellow of St Hugh’s College, Oxford. And she is the co-founder of the Clooney Foundation for Justice, which provides free legal aid in defense of free speech and women’s rights in over 40 countries. Its work has led to dozens of journalists being set free and thousands of women receiving free legal support to defend their rights, including their rights to freedom from abuse, economic discrimination, and child marriage. In 2022, the Foundation partnered with the Obama Foundation’s Girls Opportunity Alliance and Melinda French Gates to advance gender equality and reduce levels of child marriage worldwide. The Foundation also provides a fellowship program to help young women lawyers across Africa launch careers in human rights. 

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.