Amal Clooney Quits UK Media Envoy Role Over Government’s “Lamentable” Brexit Actions

Tom Grater
·2 min read

High-profile human rights lawyer Amal Clooney has written to UK foreign secretary Dominic Raab to submit her resignation from her post as Special Envoy on Media Freedom.

In the letter, revealed by UK national The Guardian, she cites Boris Johnson’s government’s “lamentable” recent actions on Brexit as the key factor.

A storm has been brewing this past week in the country over Johnson’s decision to override parts of the UK’s Brexit agreement with the European Union through an ‘Internal Market Bill’, which would contravene international law.

“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’,” wrote Clooney.

“I was also concerned to note the position taken by the government that although it is an ‘established principle of international law that a state is obliged to discharge its treaty obligations in good faith’, the UK’s ‘parliament is sovereign as a matter of domestic law and can pass legislation which is in breach of the UK’s treaty obligations’.

“Although the government has suggested that the intended violation of international law is ‘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.”

Click here to read the letter in full

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