Mr Robertson told Fairfax he intends to raise the issue with Foreign Minister Julie Bishop when she is in London in coming weeks, in the lead-up to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Malta.

And the team are also considering making an appearance at CHOGM to directly present their case to the leaders present – including Malcolm Turnbull, who as a young lawyer was handed his career-boosting Spycatcher commission by Mr Robertson.

Mr Nasheed, the Maldives' first democratically elected president, and former human rights activist and climate change campaigner, was ousted in 2012 and was tried and jailed for 13 years in March, convicted on terrorism charges for ordering the arrest of a judge.

On Monday, in London, his legal team revealed their plan to campaign internationally for his release.

The campaign follows a successful bid for a ruling by a UN tribunal, which last Friday declared that Mr Nasheed's imprisonment was arbitrary and illegal under international law, and that "he was detained because of his political opinion".

Mrs Clooney was a member of Mr Nasheed's legal team arguing the case at the UN – opposed by a Maldives government team led by Cherie Blair QC.

On Monday in London Mrs Clooney said Mr Nasheed, sometimes called 'the Mandela of the Maldives', was an advocate for a free, moderate and inclusive Maldives, "something that he paid a very heavy price for".

"It's one man who happens to represent the Maldives' greatest hope for democracy," she said. "(The country) is also shifting away from religious moderation towards more extremism. On a per capita basis the Maldives have the highest rate of recruitment to ISIS.

"Nasheed's unfair trial and conviction is emblematic of a new crisis in the country… where a fledgling democracy has entered a much darker period of repression."

Mr Nasheed's wife, Laila Ali, said the Maldives "is famous as a holiday paradise but for most Maldivians nothing could be further from the truth".

"(Nasheed) is merely a symbol of a much wider crackdown. The Maldives has returned to its dark past. Journalists are being routinely beaten up, some have even been disappeared.

"Last month a member of our legal team was stabbed in the head with a long diving knife in broad daylight. He may never recover from his injuries. Nobody has been arrested for this crime.

"The regime has tried to break (my husband) so many times but they have never succeeded."

Mrs Clooney said she had not personally received any threats.

"(But) there were discussions among Maldivians about whether that attack on our colleague, which took place just a few days before we arrived in the country, was meant to intimidate or scare the international lawyers," she said.

The attorney-general of the Maldives told her there were "no leads" on the attack but the government thought it was related to "another case", she said.

"I wasn't quite sure how they arrived at that conclusion since there were no leads," she said.

The government had also refused to release CCTV of the incident, she said.

Another member of the legal team, Jared Genser, said he had taken more than 40 cases to this UN working group, and "our victory is bar none the most complete total and overwhelming decision that I've ever seen (them) adopt".

"The government has lurched from defiance and anger … to propagating outright lies ... to even insulting members of the legal team itself, which is amusing and not atypical of dictatorships."

The best way to force the government to release Mr Nasheed would be through "fear", he said.

They had compiled a list of governments who were willing to consider imposing travel bans and financial bans on Maldives officials, possibly including judges, he said.

Mr Genser told Fairfax the team had not yet spoken to the Australian government but they intended to ask them to join this international action.

"The governments we have met with have taken the approach that sanctions are appropriate in a case like this," Mrs Clooney said.

The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, a group of five human rights law experts that includes Australian Leigh Toomey, issued a finding on September 17 that Mr Nasheed's had not received a fair trial – for reasons including that he was refused the right to call any witness or evidence, and was denied legal representation at key points during the trial.

It requested that the Maldives release Mr Nasheed "without delay", and also pay him compensation.

Last week, the Maldivian government said it would not accept the findings of the UN working group, because "it is clear that the WGAD has failed to address a number of salient points submitted by the government".

"(We) will not be made to act on the basis of a non-binding opinion," the statement said.

It also pointed out that the case was being appealed to the Maldives Supreme Court, and so it would be inappropriate for the government to interfere.

"Those issues raised by the former president are capable of being rectified on appeal despite his position of non-engagement (with the domestic case)," the statement said.

"The opinion of the WGAD cannot be adhered to whilst the domestic process is still on-going. To do so would constitute political interference in a judicial process that is still yet to conclude."

The start of Mrs Clooney's work week, after a weekend in New York celebrating her first wedding anniversary, was also noted by the Daily Mail, which omitted to mention the Maldives case but revealed that she "looked amazing in a pinstriped jacket" and "accentuated her slender legs with nude stilettos".