AMAL Clooney has quit as Britain's special envoy on media freedom in protest at Boris Johnson’s “lamentable" decision to breach internal law with his latest Brexit Bill.
The prominent human rights lawyer told Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said she had “no alternative” but to leave the post she had held since April 2019.
She said she received “no assurance” from Mr Raab that the UK Government planned to change tack over its hugely controversial UK Internal Market Bill.
The Prime Minister’s top law officer on Scotland, the Advocate General Lord Keen, resigned over the same legislation earlier this week.
The Internal Market Bill is designed to harmonise and prevent barriers within the UK internal market after Brexit and make it easier to strike trade deals with other countries.
The UK Government has admitted it would break international law in a “limited and specific way” by empowering ministers to rewriting of parts of the Withdrawal Agreement signed by the UK and EU in respect of Northern Ireland.
It has been condemned by five former Prime Ministers and a series of former Tory leaders.
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden this week warned the US would not agree a trade deal with the UK if the Bill threatened the Good Friday peace agreement.
In her letter to Mr Raab, Ms Clooney said her role was supposed to be helping the UK “in championing the right to a free press around the world”, and encouraging governments to live up to their obligations under international law.
She said: “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.
"In these circumstances 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.
"Although the government has suggested that the violation of international law would be 'specific and limited', 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.
"Out of respect for the professional working relationship I have developed with you and your senior colleagues working on human rights, I deferred writing this letter until I had had a chance to discuss this matter with you directly.
“But having now done so and received no assurance that any change of position is imminent, I have no alternative but to resign from my position."
Ms Clooney, who married actor George Clooney in 2014, said she was "disappointed" to resign as she had been proud of the UK's reputation as a champion of international legal order, and “the culture of fair play”.
However “very sadly, it has now become untenable for me, as Special Envoy, to urge other states to respect and enforce international obligations while the UK declares that it does not intend to do so itself.
"As the President of the Bar Council of England and Wales has affirmed, undermining the rule of law that 'this country is built on ... will fatally puncture people's faith in our justice system'.
"And it threatens to embolden autocratic regimes that violate international law with devastating consequences all over the world."
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