Rights Lawyers Sensitive To Rule Of Law

Michael Hedges September 20, 2020 - Follow on Twitter

From time to time elected representatives, usually in liberal democracies, establish bodies to examine media freedom. They often examine the state of media freedom in some detail with an eye toward clarifying the status and responsibilities of media outlets. They issue papers, reports and studies. There is always a conference, subdued and serious. Sometimes media outlets report on parts of this.

This past week, acclaimed human rights lawyer Amal Clooney abruptly resigned as the United Kingdom’s Special Envoy on media freedom. That exit was prompted, she explained in a letter to Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab (September 18), by the decision of the UK government to pass legislation regarding post-Brexit governing of internal markets, overwriting provisions of the UK-EU separation agreement, which “by the government’s own admission, breaks international law.”

“My role was intended to help promote action that governments could take to ensure that existing international obligations relating to media freedom are enforced in accordance with international law,” said the letter. “I accepted the role because I believe in the importance of the cause, and appreciate the significant role that the UK has played and can continue to play in promoting the international legal order. 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.” Human rights lawyers are very sensitive to rule of law issues.

Mrs. Clooney was appointed to the pro bono role in April 2019 and co-chaired a “panel of legal experts” to "counter draconian laws that hinder journalists from going about their work” and "strengthen legal mechanisms to protect journalists,” said the UK Foreign Office statement, reported CNN (April 5, 2019). An International Conference on Media Freedom (Defend Media Freedom) would convene in the UK a few months later.

She offered a blunt assessment at that conference. "What happens in a country like Australia, or the UK or the US will be looked at by every other leader in the world and potentially used as an excuse to clamp down even further on journalists,” quoted by Sydney Morning Herald (July 11, 2019). "I think journalists all over the world are less safe if the rhetoric or even policies or laws in states that are supposed to be free are actually a threat to journalism in that country."

Mrs. Clooney has joined legal teams in representing news organizations and individual journalists against legal actions by various dictators. She is currently engaged in appeals by Philippines publisher/editor Maria Ressa over a conviction for “cyber libel” charged by authoritarian President Rodrigo Duterte. “This conviction is an affront to the rule of law, a stark warning to the press, and a blow to democracy in the Philippines,” she said in a statement (June 15). “I hope that the appeals court will set the record straight in this case.” Philippines courts, she added, are “complicit in a sinister action to silence a journalist for exposing corruption and abuse.”

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) honored Mrs. Clooney in July with its 2020 Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award, “for extraordinary and sustained achievement in the cause of press freedom.”

See also...

• Hot Topics - Press/Media Freedom