Targeting International Human Rights Attorneys

“Amal Clooney Receives Stark Warning About Donald Trump,” Above the Law

Donald Trump’s attack on the legal industry isn’t just about taking shots at Biglaw, or government attorneys, or nonprofits, or caselaw or judges, or . . . actually there’s long list of targets of Trump’s ire. And *also* on the list are international human rights attorneys. It started, like so many awful things in the Trump II reign, with an Executive Order.

We’re talking about EO 14203, “Imposing Sanctions on the International Criminal Court,” which specifically imposed sanctions on British lawyer and ICC prosecutor Karim Khan. As the ICC’s Chief Prosecutor, Khan is involved in the case alleging war crimes against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. As reported by the Financial Times, the U.K. Foreign Office issued a warning to several high-level barristers that advised on the ICC matter — including Amal Clooney — that they could also be subjected to U.S. sanctions and barred from entering the country.

Clooney was admitted to the New York bar in 2002, after receiving her LLM from NYU Law. She is also admitted to practice law in England and Wales.

Trump’s bold sanction play for lawyers doing their jobs is yet another attack on the rule of law. International lawyer Alexandro Maria Tirelli told People that we are in uncharted territory with Trump’s actions as there is no history of sanctions against foreign lawyers “purely for the exercise of professional legal functions.” And what’s more, the sanctions fly in the face of the United Nations Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers (1990), which states governments have a duty to ensure lawyers “(a) are able to perform all of their professional functions without intimidation, hindrance, harassment or improper interference; (b) are able to travel and to consult with their clients freely both within their own country and abroad; and (c) shall not suffer, or be threatened with, prosecution or administrative, economic or other sanctions for any action taken in accordance with recognized professional duties, standards and ethics.”

Trump’s February order invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977, the National Emergencies Act of 1976, and the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, also known as the McCarran-Walter Act.

The IEEPA, in particular, allows the president to freeze assets, deny entry into the United States, and prohibit economic transactions to individuals deemed “hostile to American interests.”

Additionally, Tirelli notes that an executive order does not require a criminal conviction or due process. The proof of what constitutes a “threat” in this case would be at the discretion of the Trump administration.

Clooney owns property in the U.S. with her husband, actor George Clooney.