LONDON — Human rights lawyer Amal Clooney submitted her resignation as the U.K.’s special envoy on media freedom on Friday, citing recent “lamentable” actions taken by the British government.

What You Need To Know

  • Amal Clooney resigned as the U.K.'s special envoy on media freedom on Friday

  • The human rights lawyer cited the government's recent proposal to pass the Internal Market Bill, calling it "lamentable"

  • The bill would give the government power to override the EU’s role in oversight of trade between Northern Ireland and the rest of the U.K.

  • Prime Minister Boris Johnson's government has admitted the move violates international law

In a letter to U.K.’s foreign secretary Dominic Raab, Clooney said she could no longer serve in good conscience after Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced his intent to override parts of the U.K.’s year-old Brexit agreement with the European Union. 

“I have been dismayed to learn that the government intends to pass legislation – the Internal Market Bill - which would, by the government’s own admission, ‘break international law’ if enacted,” Clooney wrote in the letter, adding “it is lamentable for the U.K. to be speaking of its intention to violate an international treaty signed by the Prime Minister less than a year ago.”

Clooney said she had accepted the role in April 2019 because she believed “in the importance of the cause, and appreciate the significant role that the U.K. has played and can continue to play in promoting the international legal order.”

The lawyer added that she could no longer “urge other states to respect and enforce international obligations while the U.K. declares that it does not intend to do so itself.”

Clooney’s resignation was supported by the High Level Panel of Legal Experts on Media Freedom, an independent group of experts in human rights law. 

“I support her principled response to the shameful attitude of the UK government to its international treaty obligations in the Internal Markets Bill and in ministerial announcements that it is prepared to break international law,” David Neuberger, chair of the panel and former president of the U.K.’s supreme court, said in a statement.

Controversy has been brewing in the U.K. over the past several weeks as Johnson defends his plan to unilaterally rewrite Britain’s divorce deal with the EU. 

The Internal Market Bill cited by Clooney would give the British government the power to override the EU’s agreed role in oversight of trade between Northern Ireland and the rest of the U.K.

Johnson claims the EU has threatened to use “an extreme interpretation” of the withdrawal agreement to “blockade” food shipments from the rest of the U.K. to Northern Ireland unless Britain agrees to accept EU regulations.

The EU denies threatening a blockade and says it merely wants Britain to live up to the terms of the agreement. EU leaders are outraged at the prime minister’s proposal and have threatened the U.K. with legal action if it does not drop the proposal by the end of the month.

“I have absolutely no desire to use these measures,” Johnson told lawmakers as he introduced the Internal Market Bill in the House of Commons on Monday. “They are an insurance policy.”

In an attempt to quiet unease among lawmakers from Johnson’s Conservative Party, the government late Wednesday offered a compromise that would require Parliament to vote before the government took any actions that broke international law.

The U.K. withdrew from the EU’s political institutions on Jan. 31 but remains in a tariff-free transition period until the end of the year while negotiators work out the terms of a future trade relationship.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.