Amal Clooney resigns from envoy post over British Brexit bill
LONDON – Human rights lawyer Amal Clooney has resigned from her role as Britain’s special envoy for media freedom over the government’s threat to potentially breach its Brexit withdrawal agreement with the EU.
“I have been dismayed to learn that the government intends to pass legislation – the internal market bill – which, if enacted, would, by the government’s own admission, ‘break international law,'” Clooney wrote in a letter to Britain’s Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab on Friday (18), which was published by media including The Guardian and Britain’s Press Association.
The move will not only undermine faith in Britain’s justice system, Clooney wrote, but also “threatens to embolden autocratic regimes that violate international law with devastating consequences all over the world.”
Clooney has been involved in high-profile rights cases. She represented two Reuters journalists from Myanmar who spent more than a year in jail after uncovering a massacre, as well as Yezidi activist Nadia Murad.
The British-Lebanese lawyer said she had not received any assurance from the British government that a change of position was coming and saw no other option but to resign.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s announcement that he intended to override parts of the withdrawal agreement to protect national interests caused a storm of outrage at home and abroad earlier this month.
The EU has threatened to take the issue to court, but has not yet abandoned negotiations.
dpa