Human rights lawyer Amala Clooney has resigned as Britain’s special envoy for media freedom in response to a draft Internal Market Act that provides for the partial withdrawal of the agreement on Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union (EU).
“I am embarrassed to learn that the government intends to pass legislation – the Internal Market Bill – which, as the government itself has acknowledged, would violate international law,” Clooney wrote in a letter to British Foreign Secretary Dominic Rab on Friday. The letter was published in the media, including The Guardian and the Press Association.
According to Clooney’s letter, such actions not only undermine faith in the British justice system, but also “threaten to encourage autocratic regimes that violate international law with devastating consequences around the world.”
Amala Cloney, the wife of actor George Clooney, has been represented in high-profile human rights cases. She has represented Yesid activist Nadia Murada, as well as two Reuters journalists from Myanmar who spent more than a year in prison following the massacre.
Clooney said she had not received any reassurance from the British government that she would change her position, so she saw no choice but to resign.
The government’s bill allows Prime Minister Boris Johnson to partially abandon the Brexit agreement to remove trade barriers between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.
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