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Richard J. Goldstone at Beloit College

Richard J. Goldstone (born October 26, 1938) is a former South African judge. He served on the Transvaal Supreme Court and Appellate Division of the Supreme Court under the Apartheid regime. After the dismantling of Apartheid he served on the Constitutional Court . He also served as the chief prosecutor of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda from 15 August 1994 to September 1996, and in 2009 led an independent fact-finding mission created by the United Nations Human Rights Council to investigate international human rights and humanitarian law violations related to the Gaza War.

Family life and religious background

Richard Goldstone is a Jewish South African, who is married to Noleen Goldstone. They have two daughters and four grandsons.

Law

Goldstone is a third-generation South African who was born in 1938 into a Jewish family in Boksberg near Johannesburg. Educated at King Edward VII School in Johannesburg, he was encouraged by his grandfather to study law. He later recalled: "My grandfather decided when I was about 4 I was going to be a barrister, so I just always assumed I was. It turned out to be a wise decision." He undertook a six-year legal studies course at the University of the Witwatersrand, from which he graduated in 1962 with a BA LLB cum laude.

At the university Goldstone became involved in the international effort to end South Africa's apartheid system. He had been brought up in an anti-apartheid atmosphere; although his parents were not activists, they were opposed to racial discrimination and this was to have a profound influence on his later career. As chairman of the university's Students' Representative Council, he campaigned against the exclusion of black students.

Goldstone initially practiced corporate and intellectual property law in the capacity of an advocate of the Johannesburg Bar. He was appointed senior counsel in 1976 and in 1980 he was selected to serve as a judge on the Transvaal Supreme Court. This posed obvious moral issues – as a judge, he was expected to uphold South Africa's apartheid laws. This included passing death sentences, although he had always been against the death penalty; during his term as a judge, he sentenced two people to death for murder as mandated by the law.Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page). He used his judicial prerogatives to visit thousands of people, including some who later became members of the post-apartheid South African government, who had been imprisoned without trial. He gained a reputation as a committed and compassionate jurist who champtioned international human rights.

Goldstone issued rulings that undermined key aspects of the apartheid system, notably significantly weakening the Group Areas Act that mandated the eviction of non-whites from reserved areas. After ruling in the case of S v Govender in 1986 that evictions were not automatically required by the Act, they virtually ceased. Geoffrey Budlender, former director of the anti-apartheid Legal Resources Centre, commented of Goldstone's decision in the Govender case that "it was an alert judge trying to apply human rights standards to a repressive piece of legislation. And it was Goldstone's work; it wasn't our work that stopped the Group Areas prosecutions in the end." Budlender noted that "it was a matter of great debate in the eighties about whether decent people should accept appointments to the bench, because they were enforcing repressive laws," but stated that "rom the point of view of the practitioner trying to run human rights cases and public-interest cases, we prayed for a Goldstone or a Didcott on the bench. That was our dream." He went on to become a judge of the Supreme Court of South Africa in 1989.

In 1990, President F. W. de Klerk began the negotiation process that was to lead to the end of apartheid in 1994. To aid the transition to multiracial democracy, a Commission of Inquiry into Public Violence was established in October 1991 to investigate human rights abuses being committed by South Africa's various political factions. Its members were chosen by consensus among the three main parties; Goldstone was asked by Nelson Mandela to become the chair of the inquiry, resulting in it being known as the Goldstone Commission. He commented later that he had been selected because he had the confidence of both sides: "The government was aware that I would not make findings against it without good cause, and the majority of South Africans had confidence that I would quote hesitate to make findings against the government if the evidence justified it." He nonetheless received numerous death threats. The Commission sat for three years, carrying out over 40 major investigations. Its final report, issued in 1994, disclosed that the South African police and security forces had been involved in numerous abuses of human rights. According to Goldstone, its work helped calm South Africa during the transition period and led to the establishment of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission a year later.

Goldstone also served as the founding national president of the National Institute of Crime Prevention and the Rehabilitation of Offenders (NICRO), a body established to look after prisoners who had been released; chairperson of the Bradlow Foundation, a charitable educational trust; and head of the board of the Human Rights Institute of South Africa (HURISA).

Chief UN Prosecutor in Yugoslavia and Rwanda

In August 1994, Goldstone was named as the first chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), which was established by a resolution of the UN Security Council in 1993. When the Security Council established the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in late 1994, he became its chief prosecutor, too. In those roles he had to design prosecutorial strategies for both those ground-breaking tribunals, from scratch. In doing so, he sought to be scrupulously even-handed—a goal he was more easily able to achieve at ICTY than at ICTR. He built his strategy at both courts to a large degree on that pursued by the prosecutors at the Nuremberg Tribunal of 1945-46. He served as the chief prosecutor of the two tribunals until September 1996. R.W. Johnson, a South African journalist and historian, criticized his work at the ICTY.

The South African journalist and historian R.W. Johnson wrote in an October, 2009 piece that Goldstone had made serious ethical breaches in his capacity as chief prosecutor for the ICTY. Johnson argued that Goldstone was informed by higher-ups that if he did not secure an indictment by November, 1994, he would not receive budgetary funding for the following year. Goldstone quickly moved to indict the only person there was evidence against, even though Goldstone admitted that the defendant "wasn't an inappropriate first person to indict." Johnson, in his piece, "Who Is Richard Goldstone," noted that the indictment "was so inappropriate that the judges in The Hague passed a motion severely censuring Goldstone."

Noam Chomsky criticized Goldstone for his ruling on NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia. Chomsky has attacked Goldstones characterization of the bombing as "illegal but legitimate." Chomsky argues if Goldstone claims the bombings were illegal, then it must be a war crime.

Argentina

He was a member of the International Panel of the Commission of Enquiry into the Activities of Nazism in Argentina (CEANA) which was established in 1997 to identify Nazi war criminals who had emigrated to Argentina, and transferred victim assets (Nazi gold) there.

Kosovo

Goldstone was chairperson of the Independent International Commission on Kosovo from August 1999 until December 2001.

Member of Volcker Committee

In April 2004, he was appointed by Kofi Annan, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, to the Independent Inquiry Committee, chaired by Paul Volcker, to investigate the Iraq Oil for Food program.

United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the 2009 Gaza Conflict

Main article: United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict

Goldstone headed a fact finding mission "to investigate all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law that might have been committed at any time in the context of the military operations that were conducted in Gaza during the period from 27 December 2008 and 18 January 2009, whether before, during or after.” The mission originated in the resolution by United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) on January 12, 2009..

On April 3, 2009, Goldstone was named as the head of the mission. He responded to the announcement that he was "shocked, as a Jew", to be invited to head the mission. Goldstone wrote that he accepted the mandate for the mission "because I believe deeply in the rule of law and the laws of war, and the principle that in armed conflict civilians should to the greatest extent possible be protected from harm."

Human Rights Watch (HRW) applauded the selection of Goldstone to head the mission, saying that "Justice Goldstone's reputation for fairness and integrity is unmatched, and his investigation provides the best opportunity to address alleged violations by both Hamas and Israel". According to UNHRC's mission page, at the time of the appointment to head the committee Goldstone was a board member of HRW. Professor Gerald Steinberg of the Jerusalem-based NGO Monitor and journalist Melanie Phillips argued that even though Goldstone resigned from HRW after the inquiry began, his impartiality was compromised by his link to the organization that accused Israel of war crimes in several reports issued during the course of the mission.

Goldstone's standing in the South African Jewish community plummeted following his report on Israel's January 2009 campaign in the Gaza Strip, which provoked anger at what community leaders called called a "betrayal," as he was considered to have made himself implicated in Human Rights Council's "onslaught" on Israel, instead of correcting HRC's "wrongs".

In a July 16 interview, Judge Goldstone said "at first I was not prepared to accept the invitation to head the mission". "It was essential," he continued, to expand the mandate to include "the sustained rocket attack on civilians in southern Israel, as well as other facts." He set this expansion of the mandate as a condition for chairing the mission. The next day, he wrote in the New York Times, "I accepted because the mandate of the mission was to look at all parties: Israel; Hamas, which controls Gaza; and other armed Palestinian groups." The UNHRC press release announcing his nomination documents the changed mandate of the mission.

On October 16, 2009, UN Human Rights Council voted in support of the Goldstone Report where twenty-five member nations voted in favour of the resolution endorsing the report, six voted against endorsement while another eleven remained impartial. Goldstone has criticized the United Nations Human Rights Council's selective endorsement of the report his commission compiled, since the resolution adopted chastises Israel only, when the report itself is critical of both parties.

Other activities

From 2004 through 2008, in addition to his teaching appointments, Goldstone was the chair of the Advisory Committee to the Institute for Historical Justice and Reconciliation. In 2008, the Institute became an independent entity, with Goldstone as its chairman. He also continues as a member of the board of directors of the Salzburg Global Seminar.

Goldstone serves on the Board of Directors of several nonprofit organizations that promote justice, including Physicians for Human Rights, the International Center for Transitional Justice, the South African Legal Services Foundation, the Brandeis University Center for Ethics, Justice, and Public Life, Human Rights Watch, and the Center for Economic and Social Rights. He is a trustee of Hebrew University Goldstone was president of the Jewish training and education charity World ORT between 1997 and 2004.

Goldstone serves as a trustee for Link-SA, a charity which funds the tertiary education of South Africans from impoverished backgrounds

Goldstone participated as guest faculty in the Oxford-George Washington International Human Rights Program in 2005.

Goldstone was a Global Visiting Professor of Law at New York University School of Law in spring 2004, and in the fall, he was the William Hughes Mulligan Visiting Professor at Fordham Law School. In spring 2005, he was the Henry Shattuck Visiting Professor Law at Harvard Law School.

Goldstone is a Woodrow Wilson Visiting Scholar in Political Science at Washington & Jefferson College.

Goldstone was named the 2007 Weissberg Distinguished Professor of International Studies at Beloit College, in Beloit, Wisconsin. From January 17–28, 2007 he visited classes, worked with faculty and students, participated in panel discussions on human rights and transitional justice with leading figures in the field and delivered the annual Weissberg Lecture, "South Africa's Transition to Democracy: The Role of the Constitutional Court" on January 24 at the Moore Lounge in Pearsons Hall.

Justice Goldstone taught at Harvard University in the Spring 2007 semester. In Fall 2007 he was the William Hughes Mulligan Professor of International Law at Fordham University School of Law, and held that position again in Fall 2009. Fordham Law presented him with a Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, in 2007, the highest honor the school can bestow.

Awards and honors

Justice Goldstone has received many prominent awards, including the MacArthur Award for International Justice, announced by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in October 2008, and bestowed in The Hague in May, 2009. In 1994, Goldstone received the International Human Rights Award of the American Bar Association and in 2005 he received the Thomas J. Dodd Prize in International Justice and Human Rights. He holds honorary degrees from Hebrew University, the University of Notre Dame, the University of Maryland, and the Universities of Cape Town, British Columbia, Glasgow, and Calgary among others. He was the first person to be granted the title, The Hague Peace Philosopher in 2009, as part of the new Spinoza Fellowship, a program run by the city of The Hague, the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIAS), Radio Netherlands, and the Hague Campus of the University of Leiden. He is an honorary fellow of St Johns College, Cambridge, an honorary member of the Association of the Bar of New York, a foreign member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a fellow of the Center for International Affairs of Harvard University.

In October 2003, Goldstone gave a lecture entitled "Preventing Deadly Conflict" at the University of San Diego's Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice Distinguished Lecture Series. In April 2005, Goldstone spoke on “The Future of International Criminal Justice,” at the Fletcher School (Tufts University) in Massachusetts.

Publications

Books by Richard Goldstone

  • International judicial institutions : the architecture of international justice at home and abroad, co-authored with Adam M. Smith. London and New York: Routledge, 2009. ISBN: 9780415776455, 0415776457 (hardback); 9780415776462, 0415776465 (pbk.)
  • For humanity: reflections of a war crimes investigator. New Haven : Yale University Press, c2000. ISBN 0300082053
  • Do judges speak out?. Johannesburg: South African Institute of Race Relations, 1993. ISBN 0869824317

Contributions to edited volumes, and prefaces/forewords to books by others

  • "From the Holocaust: Some legal and moral implications", chapter in Alan S. Rosenbaum, ed., Is the Holocaust Unique? Perspectives on Comparative Genocide. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1996.

Goldstone has written forewords to several books, including Martha Minow, Beyond Vengeance and Forgiveness: Facing History after Genocide and Mass Violence and War Crimes: The Legacy of Nuremberg, which examines the political and legal influence the Nuremberg trials have had over contemporary war crime proceedings. More recently, he has written about the challenge to individual human rights posed by counter-terror measures in R. A. Wilson, ed., "Human Rights in the 'War on Terror'".

References

  1. ^ Richard J. Goldstone Appointed to Lead Human Rights Council Fact-finding mission on Gaza Conflict, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, 3 April 2009
  2. ^ "UN appoints Gaza war-crimes team". London: BBC News. 14:42 GMT, Friday, 3 April 2009. Retrieved Friday, 3 April 2009. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= and |date= (help)
  3. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1116379.html
  4. ^ Southard, Jo Lynn (1999). "Goldstone, Richard J.". In Devine, Carol; Poole, Hilary (eds.). Human rights: the essential reference. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 9781573562058.
  5. ^ The International Who's Who 2004. Europa Publications. 2004. p. 624. ISBN 9781857432176. Cite error: The named reference "Whoswho" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  6. ^ Shaw, John (2002). Washington diplomacy: profiles of people of world influence. Algora Publishing. p. 61. ISBN 9780875861609.
  7. Chaskalson, Arthur; Bizos, George (29 January - 05 February 2010). "Chaskalson and Bizos come out in defence of Richard Goldstone". SA Jewish Report. p. 16. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  8. Carnegie Corporation Oral History Project, Transcript of Interview with Geoffrey Budlender 7 Aug. 1999
  9. Greenberg, Melanie C.; Barton, John H.; McGuinness, Margaret E., eds. (2000). Words over war: mediation and arbitration to prevent deadly conflict. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. p. 254. ISBN 9780847698929.
  10. Kerr, Rachel (2004). The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia: an exercise in law, politics, and diplomacy. Oxford University Press. p. 52. ISBN 9780199263059.
  11. Who Is Richard Goldstone?, RF Europe, October 20, 2009
  13. http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/20060425.htm On the NATO Bombing of Yugoslavia
  14. US: Ask Israel to Cooperate with Goldstone Inquiry
  15. United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict. United Nations Human Rights Council. Accessed 17 October 2009.
  16. "Goldstone's UN inquiry team arrives in Gaza". London: BBC. 1 June 2009. Retrieved 4 June 2009.
  17. Resolution A/HRC/S-9/L.1, point 14.
  18. Justice in Gaza, By RICHARD GOLDSTONE, New York Times, September 17, 2009
  19. Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch (17 May 2009). "US: Ask Israel to Cooperate with Goldstone Inquiry | Human Rights Watch". Hrw.org. Retrieved 17 October 2009.
  20. Biographical information of the members
  21. NGO Monitor: Gaza war probe tainted by anti-Israel ideology, Haaretz, Sept 08 2009
  22. From Gulag Liberators to Saudi Retainers, NRO, July 21, 2009
  23. The Goldstone show-trial, Spectator, September 11, 2009
  24. What South African Jews think of Richard Goldstone forecasthighs.com, originally in the news section of Jerusalem Post, October 1, 2009.
  25. Goldstone cleared for grandson's bar mitzvah Mail & Guardian, April 16, 2010.
  26. Moira Schneider: Goldstone ‘barred’ from grandson’s barmitzvah South African Jewish Report, April 23, 2010.
  27. Goldstone: Israel should cooperate Jerusalem Post, Jul 16, 2009.
  28. Richard Goldstone, NY Times, Sept 17 2009.
  29. UNHRC press release 3 April 2009.
  30. Jack Khoury and Barak Ravid (2009-10-17). "PA 'won't oppose war crimes trials for Hamas militants'". Haaretz. Retrieved 2009-10-17. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  31. Institute for Historical Justice and Reconciliation (official website), an initiative of the Salzburg Global Seminar
  32. About the Institute for Historical Justice and Reconciliation
  33. Salzburg Global Seminar Board of Directors
  34. "PHR Board of Directors — Justice Richard J. Goldstone". Physicians for Human Rights (PHR). Retrieved 2009-09-16.
  35. Goldstone to head UNHRC Gaza inquiry JTA, April 3, 2009
  36. "Former World ORT president wins international award". World ORT. 7 November 2008. Retrieved 2009-10-26.
  37. GW-Oxford Program Targets Human Rights, GW Magazine, September 2006
  38. ^ BIOGRAPHY OF RICHARD J GOLDSTONE
  39. "Woodrow Wilson Visiting Fellows Program". Council of Independent Colleges. Retrieved 2009-09-28.
  40. Justice Richard Goldstone , Weissberg Chair in International Studies 2006 - 2007
  41. Richard J. Goldstone to Lead Human Rights Commission Fact-Finding Mission on Gaza Conflict
  42. Frank Donaghue Congratulates Justice Richard Goldstone on MacArthur Award for International Justice, Physicians for Human Rights
  43. First Spinoza Fellow Richard Goldstone

External links

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