Exclusive: UK believes Trump may sanction Amal Clooney over ICC Palestine role

The British government believes the US could sanction prominent human rights lawyer Amal Clooney over her role advising the ICC chief prosecutor on arrest warrants for Israeli leaders, Middle East Eye can reveal.

In April it emerged that the British Foreign Office had warned senior British lawyers involved in the ICC’s war crimes case against two senior Israeli leaders that they are at risk of US sanctions.

This came after the Trump administration imposed financial and visa sanctions on Karim Khan, the court’s British chief prosecutor, in February.

Last November the ICC issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. 

Trump’s executive order, a response to the arrest warrants, warned further measures could follow “on those responsible for those transgressions”.

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Multiple sources within the British government told MEE that last week the Foreign Office's legal directorate listed Amal Clooney and Lord Justice Adrian Fulford as being potentially at risk of US sanctions.

Clooney, a prominent British barrister of Lebanese and Palestinian descent, is the wife of Hollywood actor George Clooney.

But she is not an American citizen and could be barred from entering the US if she is sanctioned.

'I believe in the rule of law'

Both lawyers served early last year on an independent panel of legal advisors convened by the ICC prosecutor. 

The panel expressed their support for Khan’s decision to seek arrest warrants for senior Israeli and Hamas leaders for war crimes and crimes against humanity, and ICC judges granted his application in November.

In a statement published on the Clooney Foundation for Justice (CFJ) website last May, Clooney said she served on the panel “because I believe in the rule of law and the need to protect civilian lives".

“As a human rights lawyer, I will never accept that one child’s life has less value than another’s,” she added.

Adam Keith, a director at Human Rights First, told MEE: "The Trump administration's sanctions programme targeting the ICC  is so sweeping that just providing legal advice or input regarding the court’s Palestine investigation appears to be sanctionable.

"This means it could get any non-American placed on the Treasury Department’s financial blacklist and barred from entering the United States."

Keith described the programme as "an outrageous misuse of sanctions, and a direct attack on an accountability body that survivors and advocates around the world rely on for justice".

The British Foreign Office did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

The CFJ was co-founded by the Clooneys in 2016.

In 2024 Amal won the Legal 500 Award for international lawyer of the year. 

And just last week she was photographed backstage at her husband’s Broadway play Good Night, and Good Luck with senior Democrats Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi. 

Trump’s order gave the US Treasury and State Department a 60-day deadline to provide recommendations on who else besides Khan should be sanctioned.

No further sanctions have been announced, although they may not have been made public. 

Fulford, named alongside by Clooney by the British Foreign Office’s legal directorate, is a former judge of the ICC and former vice-president of the Court of Appeal. 

In December 2024 he said it was “vital” that ICC member states should act on the warrant for Netanyahu’s arrest.

MEE contacted Fulford and the Clooney Foundation for Justice for comment but did not receive a response by the time of publication.

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