Amal Alamuddin

oliviaa · May 13, 2014

Amal Alamuddin

She was born in Beirut, Lebanon, in 1978. During the 1980's, Alamuddin's family left for London, and they settled in Gerrards Cross. Her mother, Baria, 66, is the foreign editor of the Arab newspaper al-Hayat. Her father Ramzi, a retired professor of business studies at the American University of Beirut, returned to Lebanon in 1991. Alamuddin has three younger siblings; a sister, Tala, and two brothers Samer and Ziad. Her grandmother was said to be the first woman graduate of the American University of Beirut.

Alamuddin attended Dr Challoner's High School (DCHS), a grammar school for girls located in Little Chalfont, Buckinghamshire. She then studied at St. Hugh's College, Oxford, where she received an Exhibition and at New York University School of Law,where she received the Jack J. Katz Memorial Award conferred for excellence in the field of Entertainment law.

At St. Hugh's College, Oxford, she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Jurisprudence (Oxford's equivalent to the LLB) in 2000. The following year, in 2001, she entered New York University Law School to study for the Master of Laws degree.For one semester while at NYU, she worked as a student law clerk in the offices of Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who at the time, was a judge at the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Following her studies at NYU, she practiced at Sullivan & Cromwell in New York City for three years. In 2004, she worked at the International Court of Justice and is one of two NYU-sponsored clerks at the Court. She clerked under Judge Vladen S. Vereshchetin from Russia and Judge Nabil Elaraby from Egypt.

Career

Before becoming a barrister at Doughty Street Chambers in London, she worked in the Office of the Prosecutor at the UN Special Tribunal for Lebanon and at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia She has been involved in high-profile cases representing the state of Cambodia, the former Libyan intelligence chief Abdallah Al Senussi, Yulia Tymoshenko and Julian Assange, and is an adviser to the King of Bahrain in connection with the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry headed by Professor M. Cherif Bassiouni.

Alamuddin has been appointed to a number of United Nations commissions including as adviser to Special Envoy Kofi Annan on Syria and as Counsel to the 2013 Drone Inquiry by UN human rights rapporteur Ben Emmerson QC into the use of drones in counter-terrorism operations.

Alamuddin has also lectured students on international criminal law at SOAS (University of London), The New School in New York City, The Hague Academy of International Law, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.