|
 Working with the Columbia University Law School and the American
Bar Association, the TrialWatch initiative will train an
international network of court monitors, including non-lawyers,
whose reports will be used by legal experts to grade trials
according to international standards, several lawyers and
academics involved with TrialWatch said.
"Today, courts all over the world are used as tools of
oppression. Governments get away too easily with imprisoning
opposition figures, silencing critics and persecuting vulnerable
groups through the courts. Trial monitoring will shine a light
on these abuses," Amal Clooney said in a statement.
Amal Clooney, who married the Oscar-winning actor George Clooney
in 2014, is an international law and human rights lawyer who has
been a visiting professor at Columbia University Law School
since 2015. She and her husband launched the Clooney Foundation
for Justice, which focuses on promoting justice in courtrooms
and elsewhere, in 2016.
Her high profile cases have included representing Wikileaks
founder, Julian Assange, and the former Prime Minister of
Ukraine, Yulia Tymoshenko, as well as the country of Armenia in
its fight for recognition of the Armenian genocide.
[to top of second column] |
She currently is a member of the legal team representing Reuters
journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, who were detained last year by
Myanmar authorities while investigating the killing of 10 men and
boys of the Rohingya minority during a military crackdown. The pair
was convicted on Sept. 3 under the colonial-era Official Secrets Act
and sentenced to seven years.
Sarah Cleveland, faculty director of Columbia University Law
School's Human Rights Institute, said that while many organizations
monitor high-profile trials, TrialWatch also will scrutinize
lesser-known cases.
The aim is "to expand global capacity so that we can reach trials
that don't involve the deposed head of state," said Cleveland, who
teaches a human rights course with Amal Clooney.
(Reporting by Jonathan Landay; Editing by Mary Milliken and Rosalba
O'Brien)
[© 2018 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2018 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content. |
