Amal Clooney is a Lebanese-British barrister, scholar and human rights advocate specialising in public international law, international criminal law and human rights. Born in Beirut in 1978, she left Lebanon with her family during the civil war and grew up near London. She studied law at Oxford University and earned an LL.M. from New York University School of Law before practising in New York, working at international courts in The Hague and joining the London Bar.
Category: Leader
Field: International Law · Human Rights · Justice · Women’s Rights
The international human rights barrister who uses the law to defend journalists, survivors of atrocities, women and political prisoners—and to build systems that make justice more accessible.
At a Glance
Clooney has represented journalists, political prisoners and survivors of mass atrocities before national and international courts. Her clients have included Nobel Peace Prize laureates Nadia Murad and Maria Ressa, and she has represented Yazidi survivors in landmark proceedings that produced convictions of ISIS members for genocide and crimes against humanity. She co-founded the Clooney Foundation for Justice, which provides free legal support in more than 40 countries, and today also teaches international law at Oxford and co-leads an institute exploring how technology and AI can expand access to justice.
| Born | February 3, 1978 — Beirut, Lebanon |
| Country | Lebanon · United Kingdom |
| Field | International law, human rights, international criminal law, press freedom, women’s rights |
| Known For | Representing survivors of mass atrocities, imprisoned journalists and political prisoners; Yazidi justice cases; Clooney Foundation for Justice |
| Education | St Hugh’s College, University of Oxford — BA Jurisprudence; New York University School of Law — LL.M. |
| Major Roles / Organizations | Doughty Street Chambers; Clooney Foundation for Justice; University of Oxford; Oxford Institute of Technology and Justice; former UK Special Envoy on Media Freedom |
| First / Record / Milestone | Represented Yazidi victims in the first trial resulting in an ISIS member being convicted of genocide |
| GDT Category | Leader |
Clooney studied law at St Hugh’s beginning in 1996, received an exhibition scholarship and the Shrigley Award for excellence in law studies, and graduated in 2000. She subsequently earned her LL.M. from NYU Law, where she later received an Alumni Achievement Award.
Why She’s a Girls Do That Champion
Amal Clooney gives Girls Do That an important kind of Champion: a woman whose principal tool is her mind.
Her work shows girls that law is not simply a profession of paperwork, courtrooms and rules. Law is a way of organising power. A lawyer can challenge a government, defend somebody whom the world has forgotten, preserve evidence of atrocities, force institutions to confront injustice, help rewrite discriminatory laws or build entirely new mechanisms for accountability.
Clooney is also useful precisely because public culture often focuses on her beauty, clothing and marriage. Those things may be visible, but they are not the foundation of her authority. Before becoming globally famous, she had already studied at Oxford and NYU, practised at a major New York law firm, worked at the International Court of Justice and international tribunals, and developed expertise in some of the most technically demanding areas of law.
Girls can therefore see something unusually powerful in her story:
You can be visible without allowing visibility to become your qualification.
And there is an even deeper reason she belongs in GDT. Clooney increasingly works not only case by case, but system by system—training young women lawyers, funding legal aid, monitoring trials and now exploring how artificial intelligence can widen access to justice.
Girls Do That chose Amal Clooney because she demonstrates what happens when exceptional education, disciplined expertise and public visibility are converted into power on behalf of other people.
Her Story
From Beirut to Britain
Amal Alamuddin was born in Beirut, Lebanon, on February 3, 1978. She was still a young child when her family left Lebanon during the Lebanese Civil War and resettled near London.
That early history gives her later work an interesting symmetry.
She would eventually build a career centred on international conflict, displacement, accountability and the institutions created to respond when states and legal systems fail people.
But first came education.
Oxford
In 1996, Clooney entered St Hugh’s College at the University of Oxford to study jurisprudence.
She received an exhibition scholarship and the Shrigley Award for excellence in law studies, graduating in 2000. Years later, Oxford elected her an Honorary Fellow of St Hugh’s in recognition of her contribution to human rights and law.
When she returned to St Hugh’s years later, she described the college as having given her both her “shot” and her “legal compass.”
New York University
Clooney then crossed the Atlantic to study for an LL.M. at New York University School of Law.
NYU would prove particularly important in shaping the kind of lawyer she became.
During her studies, she secured an externship in the chambers of Sonia Sotomayor, then a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Clooney has said that her experience at NYU helped her recognise how her interests in courtroom advocacy, representing victims and addressing conflict could converge through international law.
She graduated in 2001 and later received NYU Law’s Alumni Achievement Award.
The New York Lawyer
After NYU, Clooney joined Sullivan & Cromwell in New York as a litigation associate.
Her work included complex criminal and corporate litigation. An NYU Law retrospective recounts her work on litigation connected to the Enron and Arthur Andersen cases and highlights her early ability to combine technical legal analysis with attention to the person represented by the legal file.
But international law remained the pull.
She eventually secured a clerkship at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, bringing her closer to the institutions responsible for resolving disputes between states and developing international law.
Entering International Law
Clooney subsequently worked in The Hague and international justice institutions, including the International Court of Justice, International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and Special Tribunal for Lebanon. She also worked as a prosecutor at the Special Tribunal for Lebanon.
She later served as a senior adviser to Kofi Annan when he was the United Nations–Arab League envoy on Syria and as counsel to a UN inquiry concerning the use of armed drones.
These were not celebrity appointments. They were the progression of a technically specialised international-law career.
The London Bar
Clooney joined Doughty Street Chambers, one of London’s leading human-rights sets, and developed a practice spanning public international law, international criminal law and human rights.
Her work increasingly focused on clients facing an extreme imbalance of power: political prisoners, journalists confronting governments, survivors confronting perpetrators of mass atrocities, and communities seeking accountability through international courts.
She has appeared in matters before bodies including the International Court of Justice, International Criminal Court and European Court of Human Rights.
Defending Journalists
Press freedom became one of the defining strands of Clooney’s practice.
Her clients have included Azerbaijani investigative journalist Khadija Ismayilova, Al Jazeera journalist Mohamed Fahmy, Reuters journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Ressa.
Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo had been imprisoned in Myanmar after reporting on the killing of Rohingya Muslims. They were eventually released in 2019.
Clooney later became international counsel for Maria Ressa, the Filipino journalist and Rappler co-founder whose reporting resulted in a succession of prosecutions and legal battles.
In 2020, the Committee to Protect Journalists awarded Clooney its Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award for extraordinary and sustained achievement in the cause of press freedom.
Nadia Murad and the Yazidis
One of the most consequential relationships of Clooney’s career began with Nadia Murad.
Murad is a Yazidi survivor of ISIS captivity and sexual violence who later received the Nobel Peace Prize. Clooney became her lawyer and began representing Yazidi survivors seeking accountability for genocide, enslavement, sexual violence and other crimes committed by ISIS.
Their challenge was enormous.
Military action against ISIS was already underway, but criminal accountability was far less developed. Clooney and Murad repeatedly pushed international institutions to ensure that evidence was gathered before it disappeared.
They advocated at the United Nations for an investigative mechanism capable of collecting evidence of ISIS crimes in Iraq.
The work eventually contributed to something historic.
Clooney represented a member of Murad’s family in the first trial to result in the conviction of an ISIS member for genocide, and represented other Yazidi survivors in proceedings resulting in convictions for crimes against humanity and war crimes.
She now represents hundreds of Yazidi victims in additional litigation seeking accountability from entities alleged to have enabled ISIS.
This is probably the strongest single illustration of her work:
take testimony → preserve evidence → build legal theory → find jurisdiction → litigate → establish accountability.
Taking the Argument to the United Nations
Clooney has repeatedly addressed the United Nations Security Council and General Assembly on accountability, sexual violence in conflict and press freedom.
In 2019, seated alongside Nadia Murad at the Security Council, she laid out legal options for prosecuting ISIS crimes and challenged states to move from condemnation toward actual accountability.
That image is particularly appropriate for GDT because it captures something girls do not see often enough:
a woman at an international decision-making table not as a symbol, spouse or spectator—but as counsel.
Media Freedom
In 2019, the British government appointed Clooney Special Envoy on Media Freedom.
She helped convene an independent panel of legal experts that developed legal and policy recommendations for governments seeking to strengthen protections for journalists. The panel’s work addressed issues including abusive laws, emergency visas and legal safeguards for the press.
The Committee to Protect Journalists later recognised her sustained work in this field with the Gwen Ifill Award.
The Clooney Foundation for Justice
In 2016, Amal and George Clooney co-founded the Clooney Foundation for Justice.
The organisation has evolved into something much larger than traditional celebrity philanthropy.
CFJ says it now provides free legal aid defending free speech and women’s rights in more than 40 countries. Its work includes courtroom monitoring, strategic litigation, evidence gathering and direct legal representation.
Its flagship work includes TrialWatch, which monitors criminal proceedings and identifies violations of fair-trial rights, and Waging Justice for Women, which challenges discriminatory laws and provides legal support to women and girls.
The foundation currently reports more than 1,250 hearings monitored, more than 9,000 women and children receiving free legal services, and more than 10,000 hours of free legal aid.
Building the Next Generation of Women Lawyers
This is where Amal becomes especially interesting for Girls Do That.
In 2023, CFJ launched the Waging Justice for Women Fellowship, providing fully funded year-long placements for early-career African women lawyers working at human-rights organisations across the continent.
The first cohort worked on more than 230 women’s-rights cases and provided legal information and support to more than 1,000 women and girls.
By 2026, the fellowship was entering its third year with ten fellows placed across organisations in Liberia, South Africa, The Gambia, Tanzania, Kenya, Sierra Leone and Malawi.
Two current partner organisations are Malawi’s Women Lawyers Association and Centre for Human Rights Education, Advice and Assistance (CHREAA).
That moves the work from:
Amal fights a case
to:
Amal helps build hundreds of people capable of fighting the next cases.
That is institution-building.
Professor Clooney
Clooney has also taught human rights and international law.
She joined Columbia Law School as visiting faculty in 2015 and is now a Professor of Practice in International Law at Oxford University’s Blavatnik School of Government.
She has co-authored and edited major legal texts, including The Right to a Fair Trial in International Law with Philippa Webb and Freedom of Speech in International Law with Lord David Neuberger.
The first book received an American Society of International Law Certificate of Merit and has been cited in judicial proceedings, including by the UK Supreme Court.
Law Meets Technology
Her newest chapter takes the story somewhere particularly interesting.
In October 2025, Oxford launched the Oxford Institute of Technology and Justice, co-founded by Amal Clooney and Professor Philippa Webb.
The Institute investigates how artificial intelligence and other technologies can increase access to justice while also developing safeguards for their use within legal systems. Its work covers digital evidence, cyber accountability, AI governance and tools designed to help people understand and exercise their legal rights.
This represents a significant evolution of Clooney’s career.
She began primarily as a lawyer navigating existing institutions.
She increasingly builds new institutions and technologies capable of making justice more accessible at scale.
And perhaps that is the strongest description of her legacy still being written:
not simply winning cases—but expanding who gets to use the law at all.
7. Milestones
| Year | Milestone |
|---|---|
| 1978 | Born in Beirut, Lebanon, on February 3. |
| c. 1980 | Leaves Lebanon with her family during the Lebanese Civil War and grows up near London. |
| 1996 | Begins studying law at St Hugh’s College, Oxford. |
| 2000 | Graduates from Oxford with a BA in Jurisprudence after receiving an exhibition scholarship and Shrigley Award. |
| 2001 | Earns an LL.M. from NYU School of Law. |
| Early 2000s | Practises litigation at Sullivan & Cromwell in New York. |
| 2000s | Works at international judicial institutions including the ICJ, ICTY and Special Tribunal for Lebanon. |
| 2011 | Called to the Bar of England and Wales; develops international-law practice at Doughty Street Chambers. |
| 2012 | Serves as senior adviser to Kofi Annan in his role as UN–Arab League envoy on Syria. |
| 2015 | Joins Columbia Law School as visiting faculty and senior fellow with its Human Rights Institute. |
| 2016 | Co-founds the Clooney Foundation for Justice. |
| 2016 | Begins representing Nadia Murad and Yazidi survivors seeking accountability for ISIS atrocities. |
| 2018 | Receives the United Nations Correspondents Association Global Citizen of the Year Award. |
| 2019 | Appointed UK Special Envoy on Media Freedom. |
| 2019 | Addresses the UN Security Council on accountability for sexual violence in conflict. |
| 2020 | Receives the Committee to Protect Journalists’ Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award. |
| 2021 | The Right to a Fair Trial in International Law, co-authored with Philippa Webb, is published. |
| 2021 | A German court delivers the first genocide conviction of an ISIS member; Clooney represents a Yazidi victim in the case. |
| 2022 | Named one of TIME’s Women of the Year. |
| 2022 | CFJ launches Waging Justice for Women. |
| 2023 | CFJ launches its fellowship programme for early-career women lawyers across Africa. |
| 2024 | Co-edits Freedom of Speech in International Law with Lord David Neuberger. |
| 2024 | Receives Legal 500’s International Law Junior of the Year Award. |
| 2025 | Joins Oxford’s Blavatnik School as Professor of Practice in International Law. |
| 2025 | Co-founds the Oxford Institute of Technology and Justice. |
| 2026 | Continues representing Yazidi genocide survivors while teaching, practising law and expanding technology-and-justice work at Oxford. |
8. In Her Own Words
“You have to have dogged determination.”
— TIME, 2022, discussing the persistence required in human-rights work.
“Justice is also what the victims want.”
— Speaking on accountability for ISIS crimes.
“Justice must be waged because justice is not a state; it’s an act.”
— University of Oxford, Waging Justice in an Age of Authoritarianism.
That third quote should probably become the defining quotation of the collection.
9. Read · Watch · Listen
Read
Barrister Without Borders — NYU School of Law
Probably the best single piece for understanding how her legal career was actually built: Oxford, NYU, Sullivan & Cromwell, international courts and human-rights litigation. Read at NYU Law
Amal Clooney Won’t Back Down — TIME
Maria Ressa interviews the lawyer representing her about choosing cases, power, persistence and the purpose of human-rights law. Read at TIME
Amal Clooney — Doughty Street Chambers
The most comprehensive professional summary of her current cases, appointments, publications and honours. Read her professional profile
The Right to a Fair Trial in International Law — Amal Clooney & Philippa Webb
Her major legal text on international fair-trial standards. Explore the book at Oxford Academic
Freedom of Speech in International Law — Amal Clooney & David Neuberger, eds.
A 2024 legal text defining minimum international protections for freedom of speech. Explore the book at Oxford Academic
“I Believe That Justice Must Be Waged” — British Vogue, 2025
A useful contemporary interview focused much more on her legal work than on celebrity. Read the interview
Watch
Amal Clooney on Sexual Violence in Conflict — UN Security Council, 2019
This is the GDT watch item for her. Girls see her at the Security Council making a structured legal argument for accountability for crimes against women and girls.
Waging Justice in an Age of Authoritarianism — University of Oxford
Clooney and Philippa Webb discuss fair trials, free speech and using law against abuse of power. Oxford lecture and overview
Delivering Accountability Through Innovation & Partnership — United Nations, 2021
A useful bridge into her later technology-and-justice work. Watch via UN Web TV
Amal Clooney on the Human Rights Crisis in the Maldives — Meet the Press
Listen
Amal Clooney, Geoffrey Robertson and Bill Browder on a Plan B for Human Rights — Intelligence Squared
A substantive hour-long discussion of human-rights law and mechanisms for holding abusers accountable. Listen via Apple Podcasts
Fareed Zakaria GPS — Amal Clooney and Nadia Murad on justice for Yazidis
A conversation about pursuing accountability after the UN concluded that ISIS committed genocide against the Yazidis. Listen via Apple Podcasts
Fareed Zakaria GPS — Amal Clooney and Nadia Murad on litigation against ISIS financiers
A later conversation about using civil litigation to pursue entities alleged to have facilitated ISIS. Listen via Apple Podcasts
10. Go Deeper
Doughty Street Chambers — Amal Clooney
doughtystreet.co.uk/barristers/amal-clooney
Clooney Foundation for Justice — Amal Clooney
cfj.org/person/amal-clooney/
Clooney Foundation for Justice
cfj.org
Oxford Blavatnik School of Government — Amal Clooney
bsg.ox.ac.uk/people/amal-clooney
Oxford Institute of Technology and Justice
techandjustice.bsg.ox.ac.uk
St Hugh’s College, Oxford — Amal Clooney
st-hughs.ox.ac.uk/people/amal-clooney/
UK Government — Amal Clooney
gov.uk/government/people/amal-clooney
11. Sources & Further Reading
Biography.com Editors. (2021, May 24). Amal Clooney. Biography. biography.com/celebrities/amal-alamuddin-clooney
Blavatnik School of Government. (n.d.). Amal Clooney. University of Oxford. bsg.ox.ac.uk/people/amal-clooney
Clooney Foundation for Justice. (n.d.). Amal Clooney. cfj.org/person/amal-clooney/
Clooney Foundation for Justice. (n.d.). Our story. cfj.org/our-story/
Clooney Foundation for Justice. (n.d.). TrialWatch. cfj.org/trialwatch/
Clooney Foundation for Justice. (n.d.). Waging Justice for Women. cfj.org/waging-justice-for-women/
Clooney Foundation for Justice. (2023, March 7). CFJ launches fellowship for women lawyers in Africa. cfj.org/news/cfj-launches-fellowship-for-women-lawyers-in-africa/
Clooney Foundation for Justice. (2026, January 30). Clooney Foundation for Justice announces 2026 Waging Justice for Women fellows. cfj.org/news/clooney-foundation-for-justice-announces-2026-waging-justice-for-women-fellows/
Columbia Law School. (2015, March 6). Amal Clooney joins Columbia Law School as visiting faculty. law.columbia.edu/news/archive/amal-clooney-joins-columbia-law-school-visiting-faculty
Committee to Protect Journalists. (2020). Amal Clooney. cpj.org/awards/amal-clooney/
Doughty Street Chambers. (n.d.). Amal Clooney. doughtystreet.co.uk/barristers/amal-clooney
Foreign & Commonwealth Office. (2019, April 5). Jeremy Hunt and Amal Clooney agree joint legal plan to defend media freedom. GOV.UK. gov.uk/government/news/jeremy-hunt-and-amal-clooney-agree-joint-legal-plan-to-defend-media-freedom
Gannaway, A. (2024). Barrister without borders. NYU School of Law. law.nyu.edu/news/magazine-2024-amal-clooney-international-human-rights
International Criminal Court. (2024). Report of the Panel of Experts in International Law convened by the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. icc-cpi.int — Panel report
Oxford Institute of Technology and Justice. (2025, October 6). Institute launch. University of Oxford. techandjustice.bsg.ox.ac.uk/insights/launch-of-the-institute
Ressa, M. (2022). Amal Clooney won’t back down. TIME. time.com/collections/women-of-the-year/6150539/amal-clooney-2/
St Hugh’s College. (n.d.). Amal Clooney. University of Oxford. st-hughs.ox.ac.uk/people/amal-clooney/
United Kingdom Government. (n.d.). Amal Clooney. GOV.UK. gov.uk/government/people/amal-clooney
United Nations. (2019, April 24). Amal Clooney on sexual violence in conflict—Security Council, 8514th meeting. UN Web TV. webtv.un.org — Security Council statement
University of Oxford Faculty of Law. (2023). Amal Clooney and Philippa Webb address students, alumni and faculty members. law.ox.ac.uk — Waging Justice lecture
Clooney, A., & Webb, P. (2021). The right to a fair trial in international law. Oxford University Press. Oxford Academic
Clooney, A., & Neuberger, D. (Eds.). (2024). Freedom of speech in international law. Oxford University Press. Oxford Academic
12. Her Girls Do That Club
Internal publishing note: omit for now.
There is no official Amal Clooney–Girls Do That Club relationship yet.
There is, however, an unusually strong future programme fit.
The Clooney Foundation for Justice already works in Malawi through the Women Lawyers Association and CHREAA, including fellowships for early-career women lawyers and legal services addressing women’s rights.
So an eventual Amal-linked GDT Club could be exceptionally coherent if it focused on:
Law · Debate · Human Rights · Public Speaking · Civic Leadership · Girls’ Legal Literacy
Rather than merely teaching girls that “women can be lawyers,” the programme could teach:
Know your rights. Construct an argument. Use evidence. Speak clearly. Defend somebody else.
That would be a superb GDT Club.
But until an actual partnership exists, I would keep this entirely off the public page.
13. Final Collection CTA
Carry her story with you.
Explore books, apparel, stationery, collectibles and other products inspired by Amal Clooney—and by the idea that knowledge becomes powerful when you know how to use it in defence of others.
Every collection helps fund a Girls Do That Club for the next generation.
