British-Lebanese lawyer Amal Alamuddin announced that she will not serve on a new UN commission that will investigate alleged Israeli human rights violations in the Gaza Strip, following media reports she would take up the role.
Speaking through the spokesman of her fiance, Hollywood actor George Clooney, Alamuddin said Tuesday that she was offered the role by the UN Human Rights Council but could not accept it due to a large number of other commitments.
“I am horrified by the situation in the occupied Gaza Strip, particularly the civilian casualties that have been caused, and strongly believe that there should be an independent investigation and accountability for crimes that have been committed,” Alamuddin said.
A UN spokeswoman in Geneva could not explain why the 47-nation UN Human Rights Council had announced Monday that it had appointed Alamuddin to the commission, along with human rights experts Doudou Diene from Senegal and William Schabas from Canada.
The Geneva-based advocacy group UN Watch called on Schabas to recuse himself from the commission because of prior statements critical of Israeli leaders. The group’s executive director, Hillel Neuer, also questioned whether the UN is “trying to inject some Hollywood publicity into the process” by appointing Alamuddin.
Alamuddin is a London-based international law specialist and former legal adviser to the prosecutor of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon.
Schabas is an international law professor at Middlesex University, while Diene of Senegal is a lawyer who has filled UN posts on racism and human rights in Ivory Coast.
Gabon Ambassador Baudelaire Ndong Ella, who presides over the UN’s top human rights body in Geneva, said the commission would investigate all violations of international humanitarian and human rights law according to the council’s July 23 resolution.
