Amal Clooney

This woman has taken on dictators, warlords, terrorists, and multinational corporations.

Amal Clooney was two years old when her family fled the Lebanese Civil War and resettled in the UK.

She earned her law degree at St Hugh’s College, Oxford.

Then, she got her LLM from NYU, working under Sonia Sotomayor, then a U.S. federal judge.

In 2002, she was admitted to the New York Bar and started working at Sullivan & Cromwell in Manhattan on high-profile criminal defense cases, including Enron and Arthur Andersen.

In 2010, she was called to the Bar of England and Wales and joined Doughty Street Chambers.

She clerked at the International Court of Justice.

Assisted at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

And prosecuted at the Special Tribunal for Lebanon... charging Hezbollah members for the assassination of a prime minister.

Her focus: human rights, media freedom, and accountability for mass atrocities.

She’s represented:
- Julian Assange (WikiLeaks founder)
- Mohamed Nasheed (former President of the Maldives)
- Yulia Tymoshenko (former Ukrainian PM)
- Nadia Murad (Yazidi Nobel laureate)
- Maria Ressa (Filipino journalist facing decades in prison)
- Khadija Ismayilova (Azerbaijani investigative journalist)

In Myanmar, she secured the release of Reuters reporters Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, imprisoned for uncovering evidence of genocide against the Rohingya.

She won the first convictions in history of ISIS fighters for genocide and crimes against humanity.

And when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, she joined a legal task force advising the Ukrainian government on prosecuting war crimes.

In 2016, she and her husband George launched the Clooney Foundation for Justice (CFJ).

Its programs include…
- TrialWatch®: monitoring trials worldwide and providing legal aid to journalists unjustly imprisoned
- Waging Justice for Women: free legal aid for women facing abuse, discrimination, or child marriage
- The Albies Awards: honoring human rights defenders globally

She’s also worked with the Obama Foundation’s Girls Opportunity Alliance and Melinda French Gates to combat child marriage.