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Before speaking at the Fogelson Honors Forum, Amal Clooney met with students at a private reception in the Brown-Lupton University Union chambers. (Photo provided by Oliver Martinez)
Justice is not inevitable and requires a collective effort to reform the system, said Amal Clooney.
Clooney is a lawyer specializing in international law and human rights. She defends clients who are victims of mass atrocities and political prisoners in cases involving freedom of expression and the right to a fair trial before international courts, including the International Criminal Court, the International Court of Justice and the European Court human rights. She is also a visiting professor at Columbia Law School, where she co-teaches courses on human rights, and she is a co-founder of the Clooney Foundation of Justice.
Clooney said her pursuit of human rights began when she was a young lawyer working on a war crimes trial in The Hague at the International Criminal Court.
Slobodan Milosevic, the former president of Yugoslavia, was known as the “Butcher of the Balkans”. His crimes included persecution, extermination and torture during the war with Croatia.
“It was an important turning point where I saw the possibility that someone who was once the most powerful man in the state was actually in the dark and being tried for genocide and the idea of a young lawyer working on this was really exciting,” Clooney said.
As co-founder of Clooney Foundation for Justice, she is dedicated to promoting justice by ensuring that those responsible for human rights violations around the world are held accountable. The foundation focuses on war crimes, genocide, press freedom, promoting the rule of law and, more recently, women’s rights.
Throughout the discussion, Clooney spoke about his experience representing high-profile cases, including that of the Nobel Prize-winning journalist. Maria RessaNobel Peace Prize winner Nadia Mourad who advocated for justice for the Yazidi people and the 126 Darfurian victims of Ali Kushayb, a Sudanese militia leader.
“We try to choose cases that will have a ripple effect beyond that person or where (we) can help change the system,” Clooney said. “In the case of the Maldives, if I get my client out of prison, which we did, then he will be able to run in the elections, and the elections will then go the right way, his party will win again and he will be back in power. path to democracy. Before that, it (had) one of the highest recruitment rates for ISIS. »
After spending more than two decades gathering evidence of crimes against humanity, Clooney said she faced challenges working in countries where her presence sowed discord, such as Egypt.
Despite the difficulties, Clooney hopes that the challenges of combating human rights violations around the world can be overcome. “I teach at Columbia Law School and I see a generation of very determined young people who are more informed than I was when I was their age – who don’t think of themselves as observers, but who see themselves as agents of change and who know that one person can change history,” Clooney said. “And they want to be that person.”
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