Amal Clooney

Amal Alamuddin was born in Beirut on 3 February 1978. When she was two years old, her family moved to the United Kingdom during the Lebanese Civil War and settled in Buckinghamshire. She attended Dr Challoner's High School before winning an exhibition grant and the Shrigley Award to study jurisprudence at St Hugh's College, Oxford, where she graduated in 2000 with an upper second-class degree.

She then studied for an LLM at New York University School of Law, receiving the Jack J. Katz Memorial Award for excellence in entertainment law. During her studies, she worked for one semester in the office of Sonia Sotomayor, then a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Clooney later became an honorary fellow of St Hugh's College.

Clooney began her legal career in New York at Sullivan & Cromwell, working in the firm's Criminal Defense and Investigations Group and representing clients including Enron and Arthur Andersen during criminal investigations. She was admitted to the New York Bar in 2002 and was called to the Bar of England and Wales in 2010. She practises as a barrister at Doughty Street Chambers and has worked at the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Her international work included a judicial clerkship at the International Court of Justice and service as judicial assistant to Patrick Robinson at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. She also worked as a prosecutor at the Special Tribunal for Lebanon in the case concerning the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafic Hariri.

Clooney has represented or advised clients including Mohamed Nasheed, Julian Assange, Yulia Tymoshenko, Nadia Murad, Maria Ressa, Khadija Ismayilova and Mohamed Fahmy. She joined the legal team for Reuters journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo in Myanmar and later helped lead the international legal team representing Maria Ressa. Her work has also included representing Yazidi victims at the International Criminal Court, advising Ukraine on avenues for accountability after the Russian invasion, and filing a civil case on behalf of Yazidi plaintiffs against Lafarge.

In 2019, Clooney became the inaugural deputy chair of the High Level Panel of Legal Experts on Media Freedom and served as the UK's special envoy on media freedom from 2019 to 2020. She has also advised United Nations initiatives, including work with Kofi Annan on Syria and a 2013 inquiry into the use of drones in counter-terrorism operations. In 2024, she served on an advisory panel convened by the International Criminal Court to review its prosecutor's investigation into potential war crimes in the Gaza war.

In 2016, Clooney co-founded the Clooney Foundation for Justice with George Clooney. The foundation provides legal aid in support of free speech and women's rights in more than 40 countries.

Its TrialWatch initiative provides legal assistance to journalists who have been unfairly imprisoned, while Waging Justice for Women supports women and girls facing discrimination, child marriage and violence. The foundation has also supported fellowships for young women lawyers in Africa and partnered with the Obama Foundation's Girls Opportunity Alliance and Melinda French Gates on efforts to advance gender equality and reduce child marriage.

Clooney also partnered with the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative to establish the Amal Clooney Scholarship, which sends a female student from Lebanon to United World College Dilijan each year for a two-year International Baccalaureate programme. Alongside George Clooney, she has supported humanitarian and human-rights causes including aid for Lebanese charities after the 2020 Beirut explosion.

Clooney married actor George Clooney in Venice on 27 September 2014. They had been introduced by a mutual friend in 2013, and their marriage brought increased public attention to a legal career that was already established in international law and human-rights circles.

The couple have twins, Ella and Alexander, who were born in June 2017. Their joint public work has included the Clooney Foundation for Justice and support for the March for Our Lives demonstration following the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

Clooney has written and edited works on international and criminal law. She co-edited The Special Tribunal for Lebanon: Law and Practice, published by Oxford University Press in 2014, and co-authored The Right to a Fair Trial in International Law with Philippa Webb in 2020.

She has also co-edited Freedom of Speech in International Law and contributed chapters and articles on human rights, war-crimes jurisdiction, evidence in international criminal justice and the relationship between law and politics. The Right to a Fair Trial in International Law received the American Society of International Law Certificate of Merit for High Technical Craftsmanship and Utility to Practicing Lawyers and Scholars.