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Who is George Clooney’s wife Amal and what’s her role in the ICC arrest warrants?
While George Clooney may be a big-name Hollywood celebrity, his wife Amal is a well-known and respected human rights lawyer, activist and philanthropist.
George Clooney’s wife Amal Clooney was named as one of the experts consulted as the International Criminal Court investigated potential arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.
The ICC’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, confirmed that the court is seeking warrants on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity regarding the ongoing conflict in Gaza, with Reuters reporting a week ago that more than 35,000 Palestinian people, mostly civilians have been killed by Israel. As for Sinwar, he is facing action for the October 7 attacks on southern Israel, where around 1,200 Israelis were killed, according to Reuters.
Khan said that the court was also seeking warrants for Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. The charges against Sinwar include “extermination, murder, taking of hostages, rape and sexual assault in detention.”
Regarding the charges against Netanyahu and Gallant, Khan said that they include “causing extermination, causing starvation as a method of war, including the denial of humanitarian relief supplies, deliberately targeting civilians in conflict.”
Who is George Clooney’s wife, Amal Clooney?
Prior to becoming engaged, Amal Clooney, née Alamuddin, had made a name for herself through her career focused on international law and human rights issues. She represented clients before the International Criminal Court, the International Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights as well as providing advice to former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.
The Lebanese-British lawyer and activist married George Clooney in 2014. Both continue to advocate for justice providing free legal support to victims of human rights abuses through the Clooney Foundation for Justice. Additionally, they created a new awards ceremony, The Albie Awards, to honor individuals who have taken a stand against injustice.
The couple became parents to twins, Ella and Alexander, in June 2017. The Clooneys recently shared what a handful they can be. “I started teaching them pranks cause it was funny, cause I play [them] on [their] mother and now they just play them on me,” he said.
Amal Alamuddin Clooney
Amal, whose name in Arabic means “hope”, was born in Beirut, Lebanon, on 3 February 1978 to Ramzi and Baria Alamuddin. He was the vice president of the Universal Federation of Travel Agents’ Association and she is a well-known political journalist. The family fled their native Lebanon due to the ongoing civil war in the nation and moved to London, England, in 1980.
Upon graduating from the all-girls St Hugh’s College, she went to Oxford University on scholarship for her academic aptitude. During her law studies she developed an interest in human rights. After graduating in 2000, she attended the NYU School of Law to pursue a master’s degree.
The beginning of her law career
While studying in New York, she clerked at the US Court of Appeals with future Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor as well as the International Court of Justice. She graduated in 2002, joined the New York State Bar and began working at one of the top-ranked law firms in the world Sullivan & Cromwell in New York. There she was on the defense team for Enron’s lead auditor Arthur Andersen.
However, in 2005 she took what her friends considered an insane change of career to refocus on international law and clerked at the International Court of Justice. The position came with a $20,000 stipend but for her it was thrilling. She worked on the war-crimes trial of the former president of Serbia, Slobodan Milošević.
Focus on international justice and human rights cases
Clooney had planned to go back to New York but an opportunity to work on the UN investigation to prosecute the murderers of Lebanon’s prime minister Rafic Hariri in Beirut to her back to her birthplace. Work on that tribunal eventually brought her to her current firm, Doughty Street Chambers.
Since 2010 she has been a barrister handling high-profile cases in international courts such as the defense of former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange and the Yazidi community seeking accountability for genocide and other crimes perpetrated by ISIS are just to name a few among many.