Amal Clooney Weighs in on the MeToo Movement, and Seeking Justice for Women Around the World

At the 2015 Golden Globes, Tina Fey introduced George Clooney, that night receiving a lifetime achievement award, by detailing the achievements of his wife, Amal, instead. "Amal is a human rights lawyer who worked on the Enron case, was an adviser to Kofi Annan regarding Syria, and was selected for a three-person U.N. commission...So tonight her husband is getting a lifetime-achievement award." That's a typical punchline for the power couple, one that underscores how Amal Clooney, as an internationally renowned humanitarian lawyer, brings infinitely more to the table than the usual "wife of" status would imply. With Amal, we're actually closing in on "husband of" territory, as Clooney's latest Vogue cover story reveals. When it comes to international human rights, free speech, protecting women and bringing abusers to justice—literally—around the world, Clooney is the star of the show. But in her conversation with Nathan Heller for Vogue, she proved her inclination to share the spotlight, opening up about her relationship with Yazidi refugee survivor and activist Nadia Murad, and the MeToo movement.

As a Yazidi, a member of the Kurdish-speaking ethnoreligious minority group targeted by the Islamic State, Murad underwent unspeakable abuse, including rape, after ISIS raided her hometown of Kocho in 2014. She eventually escaped and began a new life in Germany, and has since dedicated herself to sharing the Yazidi's plight with the Western world. Clooney met Murad in 2016, and took it up on legal grounds, attempting to use the international justice system to help survivors. "Not many people stepped up to help as she did," Murad tells Vogue in the story. "I was surprised that someone like her—a successful lawyer with a strong record—would help us. We’re a very small community." Clooney accompanied Murad to the floor of the U.N., where she delivered a fierce argument: "I am ashamed," Clooney railed, "as a supporter of the United Nations, that states are failing to prevent or even punish genocide because they find that their own interests get in the way.”

The U.N. Security Council eventually resolved to establish an investigative team to collect evidence about ISIS's actions in Iraq. "It tells victims that they may finally have their day in court," Clooney wrote in an opinion piece afterwards. She has continued to support Murad in her activist efforts, including writing the forward to Murad’s memoir, The Last Girl. But her work for the Yazidis is not the first time that Clooney has turned her focus on freedom of speech and justice for victims of abuses of power, or even specifically to the plight of women. In 2015, she signed on to represent Khadija Ismayilova, an Azerbaijani investigative journalist who published evidence of corruption by Azerbaijan’s president. Ismayilova had been sentenced to prison on charges that, Clooney sought to show, were fabricated. In 2016, after Clooney submitted evidence to the European Court of Human Rights, Ismayilova was released.

Clooney’s work puts the fight for respect, representation, and protection under the law demanded by the MeToo movement on a global scale, and is a reminder of both the things that many women share nearly universally, and the huge gulf between women with and without means around the world. "I think because of the brave women who have come forward to tell their stories, the future workplace will be safer for my daughter than it was for people of my generation,” Clooney tells Vogue, "We’re in a situation where a predator feels less safe and a professional woman feels more safe, and that’s where we need to be."

Clooney is co-authoring a book called The Right to a Fair Trial, which seeks to synthesize a full canon of international court literature to create a practical manual for lawyers and judges across the world. She's continuing her work at the U.N., to use that structure to improve the quality of life of the people most in need. The success of the Yazidi's and Nadia Murad's case was a test of "the whole international system—if the U.N. can’t take meaningful action, something is really fundamentally wrong."

See Amal Clooney’s Vogue Cover Shoot Photographed by Annie Leibovitz:

See Amal Clooney’s Vogue Cover Photographed by Annie Leibovitz