Amal Clooney quits job as UK envoy for media freedom over ‘lamentable’ Brexit bill

Prominent human rights lawyer Amal Clooney on Friday resigned her post as a UK envoy for media freedom, in protest at the government’s “lamentable” decision to breach its EU divorce treaty.

Clooney became the third lawyer to part ways with Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government, after it introduced legislation that would rewrite its post-Brexit obligations to the European Union over Northern Ireland.

Undermining the rule of law “threatens to embolden autocratic regimes that violate international law with devastating consequences all over the world”, she wrote in a letter to Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab.

“Although the government has suggested that the violation of international law would be ‘specific and limited’, it is lamentable for the UK to be speaking of its intention to violate an international treaty signed by the prime minister less than a year ago.”

On her appointment to the UK role in April 2019, Clooney had said she welcomed the opportunity to build on her legal defence of persecuted journalists by working with the government to champion a free press around the world.

“I accepted the role because I believe in the importance of the cause, and appreciate the significant role that the UK has played and can continue to play in promoting the international legal order,” she wrote.

“However, very sadly, it has now become untenable for me, as special envoy, to urge other states to respect and enforce international obligations while the UK declares that it does not intend to do so itself.”