George Clooney is the co-founder of the Clooney Foundation for Justice, as well as the Co-Founder of the Sentry. George has been deeply involved in creating accountability for genocide and other atrocity crimes in Africa and beyond for nearly two decades. He has testified at the UN Security Council as well as before the US Senate on multiple occasions about the need for accountability for atrocities committed in Darfur.
George has advocated for peace in African conflicts directly with numerous heads of state and legislators around the world. He also co-founded two other human rights initiatives, Not On Our Watch and The Satellite Sentinel Project, which joined together with the Enough Project to become The Sentry.
He has traveled to active war zones in Darfur, the Nuba Mountains, South Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. His first trip was with his father, Nick, after which they spoke at the rally for Darfur on the Washington Mall, which attracted 100,000 participants. The pair, along with John Prendergast, were also arrested in 2012 when they were part of the delegation that peacefully demonstrated in front of the Sudanese Embassy in Washington, D.C., calling worldwide attention to the human rights violations being committed in Sudan.
In 2019 he led a successful boycott of nine hotels owned by the Sultan of Brunei following the country’s attempts to enforce the death penalty for homosexuality. He has a unique position and ability to galvanize people around human rights issues, and over the years, he has also raised hundreds of millions of dollars for causes such as the Haiti earthquake victims, Indonesian tsunami and 9/11 victims. He also helped organize the March for Our Lives in the aftermath of the Parkland school shooting.
John Prendergast is a human rights and anti-corruption activist as well as a New York Times best-selling author, and is the Co-Founder of the Sentry. John has worked for the White House, the State Department, two members of Congress, the National Intelligence Council, UNICEF, Human Rights Watch, the International Crisis Group, and the U.S. Institute of Peace. He has been a big brother in the Big Brothers/Big Sisters program for over 35 years to ten different boys, as well as a youth counselor and basketball coach. John is the author or co-author of eleven books.
During his time in government, John was part of the facilitation team behind the successful two-year mediation led by Anthony Lake which ended the 1998-2000 war between Ethiopia and Eritrea, the deadliest war in the world at the time. He was also part of peace processes for Burundi (led by President Nelson Mandela), Sudan (led by Lazaro Sumbeiywo) and DR Congo.
John has been awarded seven honorary doctorates. He is or has been a visiting professor at Stanford University, Yale Law School, Columbia University, Dartmouth College, Duke University, Claremont McKenna College, Kean University, American University, American University in Cairo, the University of San Diego, the University of Pittsburgh, Temple University, Albright College, St. Mary’s College, the University of Massachusetts, and Eckerd College.
John has appeared in five episodes of 60 Minutes, for which the team won an Emmy Award, and helped create African characters and stories for two episodes of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, one focusing on the recruitment of child soldiers and the other on rape as a war strategy. John has also traveled to Africa with NBC’s Dateline, ABC’s Nightline, The PBS NewsHour, CNN’s Inside Africa, Newsweek/The Daily Beast, and The New York Times Magazine.
He has appeared in several documentaries including Merci Congo, When Elephants Fight, Blood in the Mobile, Sand and Sorrow, Darfur Now, 3 Points, Son of South Sudan, and War Child. John appears in the Warner Brothers’ motion picture The Good Lie, starring Reese Witherspoon. He is a primary subject of the book by Jane Bussman, “A Journey to the Dark Heart of Nameless Unspeakable Evil.” He has been profiled in The New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, Men’s Vogue, Time, Entertainment Weekly, GQ, Oprah Magazine, The Hill, Capitol File, Arrive, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Spectator Life, and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
> Putin’s Exploitation of Africa Could Help Him Evade Sanctions (TIME, April 2022)
> Violence is the Business Model in South Sudan (USA Today, October 2019)
> How Congress Can Help Stop the Killing in Sudan (Politico, June 2019)
> Sudan Needs More Than Words. It Needs Action. (Washington Post, April 2019)
> In Support of Sudan’s Protesters (Guardian, January 2019)
> The Key to Making Peace in Africa (Foreign Affairs, March 2018)
> An American Lobbying Firm Is Helping Sudan’s Vile Regime (TIME, July 2017)
> South Sudan’s government-made famine (Washington Post, March 2017)
> British Banks are Go-betweens in Global Conflict. This can be Stopped. (The Guardian, February 2017)
> Stop the Cash, Stop the Conflict (The Economist, November 2016)
> War crimes shouldn’t pay in South Sudan (Washington Post, September 2016)
> Sanctions threats not enough in in South Sudan (CNN, June 2015)
> Sudan’s Rape of Darfur (New York Times, February 2015)
> New Lost Boys of South Sudan (USA Today, February 2014)
> How to Stop An Inferno in South Sudan (Daily Beast, December 2013)
> Sudan could become a second Syria (USA Today, October 2013)
> Endgame in Sudan (Huffington Post, December 2012)
> The Crisis in the Sudans: The Urgency of U.S.-China Cooperation (Time, April 2012)
> Famine as a Weapon: It’s Time to Stop Starvation in Sudan (Time, December 2011)
> Dancing with a dictator in Sudan (Washington Post, May 2011)
> Europe must do more to engage in Sudan (Prague Post, January 2011)
> Europe’s Contribution to Peace in South Sudan (Project Syndicate, January 2011)
> Act now to prevent war in the Sudan (CNN, December 2010)
> Late, But Not Too Late, for Sudan (Huffington Post, November 2010)
> We can prevent the next Darfur (Washington Post, October 2010)
> U.S. must help stop Sudan’s slow-motion war (USA Today, June 2010)
> Obama’s Opportunity to Help Africa (Wall Street Journal, November 2008)