Richard Goldstone
Richard J. Goldstone, (born October 26, 1938), South African judge and international war crimes prosecutor.
Early life
After graduating from the University of the Witwatersrand with a BA LLB cum laude in 1962 he practised as an Advocate at the Johannesburg Bar. In 1976 he was appointed Senior Counsel and in 1980 was made Judge of the Transvaal Supreme Court.
Judge and Justice
South Africa
Richard J. Goldstone served nine years as a justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa, which was entrusted with the task of interpreting the new South African Constitution and supervising the country’s transition into democracy.
Argentina
He was a member of the international panel established in August 1997 by the government of Argentina to monitor the inquiry into Nazi activity in the republic since 1938.
Kosovo
Goldstone was chairperson of the International Independent Inquiry on Kosovo established in 1999.
South African honors
Served as national president of the National Institute of Crime Prevention and the Rehabilitation of Offenders (NICRO); chairperson of the Bradlow Foundation, a charitable educational trust; and head of the board of the Human Rights Institute of South Africa (HURISA).
Member of Volcker Commission
In April 2004, he was appointed by Kofi Annan, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, to the Independent International Committee, chaired by Paul Volcker, to investigate the Iraq Oil for Food program.
The Goldstone Commission: Defusing apartheid
Before taking a seat on the Constitutional Court of South Africa, Goldstone served as chairperson of the Standing Commission of Inquiry Regarding Public Violence and Intimidation—later known as the Goldstone Commission in South Africa. The Commission played a critical role in defusing the political violence that erupted when apartheid in South Africa began eroding in the late 1980s as the country moved toward its first democratic elections, and concluded that political violence was fuelled by a 'third force'.
Chief UN Prosecutor in Yugoslavia and Rwanda
From 1994 to 1996, Goldstone served as the chief prosecutor of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda.
Author
Goldstone is the author of numerous articles on international humanitarian law. He has written forewords to several books, including "Martha Minow’s 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'".
Awards and honorary degrees
Justice Goldstone has received many prominent awards, including the MacArthur Award for International Justice, bestowed by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in October 2008. 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 Human Rights. He holds honorary degrees from Hebrew University, the University of Notre Dame, Maryland University College, and the Universities of Cape Town, British Columbia, Glasgow, and Calgary among others. 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.
Boards
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 Brandeis University Center for Ethics, Justice, and Public Life, Human Rights Watch, and the Center for Economic and Social Rights.[1]
Professor
Goldstone was a Global Visiting Professor of Law at New York University School of Law.
Justice Richard J. 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 24th at the Moore Lounge in Pearsons Hall.
Justice Goldstone continued teaching at Harvard University until the end of the Spring 2007 semester, after he leaves Beloit College. In Fall 2007 he was made William Hughes Mulligan Professor of International Law at Fordham University School of Law, giving a seminar on "Laws of War and International Criminal Courts."
Personal Details
Richard Goldstone is Jewish and married to Noleen Goldstone. They have two daughters (Glenda and Nicole) and four grandsons (Jason, Sean, Ben and Jordan).