Richard Goldstone

Richard J. Goldstone at Beloit College

Richard J. Goldstone (born October 26, 1938) is a South African former judge. He served on the Transvaal Supreme Court and Appellate Division of the Supreme Court from 1980 to 1991. During the transition from apartheid to multiracial democracy he headed the influential Goldstone Commission into political violence in South Africa and was appointed by President Nelson Mandela to the newly-established Constitutional Court of South Africa.. 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 third-generation South African who was born in 1938 into a Jewish family in Boksberg near Johannesburg. He is married to Noleen Goldstone. They have two daughters and four grandsons.

Career

South Africa

While still a child, Goldstone was encouraged by his grandfather to study law. He later recalled: "My grandfather decided when I was about 4 [that] I was going to be a barrister, so I just always assumed I was. It turned out to be a wise decision." He was educated at King Edward VII School in Johannesburg and subsequently 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. Like many other Jewish South Africans, he chose to become conspicuously active in public life in an effort to oppose or alleviate the worst aspects of apartheid. While he was chairman of the university's Students' Representative Council, he campaigned against the exclusion of black students.

Judicial career

Goldstone initially practised 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. Nonetheless, Goldstone was seen as reluctant to impose the death penalty. One Transvaal judge, D. Curlewis, commented in 1991 that "a person who deserves to hang was more likely to get the death sentence from me or my ilk" than Goldstone or other liberal judges, who were "at heart abolitionists for one reason or another... Obviously, and for that reason, they cannot be sound on the imposition of the death penalty."

Goldstone sought instead to employ the bench as a means of making ordinary South Africans aware of the iniquities of apartheid. He was described as "an outstanding commercial lawyer who had shrewdly and inventively applied the law to secure justice in politically controversial and human rights cases." He said later: "I took an appointment to the bench, as did a number of liberal judges, and we had to uphold the law of the country. It was a moral dilemma to do that, but the approach was that it was better to fight from inside than not at all. The moral dilemma came up when I had to apply the law." He noted in 1992 that most South African judges "applied such [apartheid] laws without commenting upon their moral turpitude." A number, including Goldstone, were more outspoken – a policy that he felt aided the credibility of the courts. There was a fine dividing line between applying moral standards and promoting political doctrines, but Goldstone believed that "in my view, if a judge is to err, it should be on the side of defending morality." He described his experience of being a judge in apartheid South Africa as being that although "I hated in the morning the thought of having to do this for another day, by the end of the day, I was exhilarated at the reaction and how important the work was."

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 1982 that evictions were not automatically required by the Act, they virtually ceased. It thus became so difficult to evict non-whites that Johannesburg's system of housing segregation began to break down. 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 "[f]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 [John] Didcott on the bench. That was our dream." Goldstone also used his judicial prerogatives to visit thousands of people who had been imprisoned without trial, including some who later became members of the post-apartheid South African government. He gained a reputation as a committed and compassionate jurist who championed international human rights. He went on to become a judge of the Supreme Court of South Africa in 1989. As one of three judges on the Supreme Court's appellate panel, he upheld a majority of appeals to the court.

Goldstone Commission

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 Regarding the Prevention of Public Violence and Intimidation 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 to 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

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia building in The Hague, Netherlands

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. His appointment to the tribunals came as something of a surprise, even to Goldstone himself, as he had only limited experience of international law and Yugoslavian affairs and had never been a prosecutor before. He owed his appointment to the Italian chief judge of the ICTY, Antonio Cassese. There had been lengthy wrangling between UN member states about whom to appoint as a prosecutor and none of the candidates proposed so far had been accepted. The French national counsel, Roger Errera, suggested Goldstone. Cassese later recalled the conversation:

I answered, "Who's he?"

"Goldstone, the South African, the chairman of the Commission on Violence committed by the police under apartheid, a really good guy."

"He's Jewish?"

"Listen, we don't ask that question."

"But no, if he is Jewish, that goes down well. Everyone suspects everyone in the former Yugoslavia. So it's better that he is neither Catholic, nor Orthodox, nor Muslim."

Goldstone was approached by Cassese and expressed an interest in the position. President Mandela supported his wish to take up the position at The Hague, as Goldstone later recalled: "He certainly encouraged me. He thought it was important to take what was the first offer of a major international position after South Africa ceased to be a pariah." However, the offer put Mandela in a difficult spot. He wanted Goldstone, who had was one of the few South African jurists to have earned the respect of both blacks and whites, for South Africa's newly established Constitutional Court. Mandela struck a deal with the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, that Goldstone would serve only half of his four-year term as prosecutor and would then return to take up his post in South Africa. The president rushed through a constitutional amendment that would allow Goldstone to be named, take an immediate period of leave to serve at the tribunal and then return to his spot on the Constitutional Court. He proved to be an ideal candidate, as he had been suggested by the French, was not too hot-headed for the British, was strong enough to satisfy the Americans and his credentials as a white South African who had opposed apartheid satisfied the Russians and Chinese. The United Nations Security Council unanimously approved his appointment to the role of prosecutor.

In his roles at the ICTY and ICTR 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. He was hindered by the inflexible bureaucracy of the United Nations, finding the newly established ICTY in a shambles when he joined the tribunal. He estimated in December 1994 that he needed twice the number of staff that he had been given and had to make appeals to the UN's hierarchy and to donor nations for the equipment and funding that the tribunal needed to operate.

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 chair 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.

Criticism and controversy

A report carried by Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot made accusations that during his role as judge during the State of Emergency in 1980s, Richard Goldstone sentenced 28 black men to death and 4 black men to receive lashings. The report also alleged that Goldstone sentenced these men to death after they appealed their conviction of murder.

Goldstone vigorously denied these accusations, saying that he had sentenced two people to death during his time as a judge 25-30 years ago for gratuitous murders committed during armed robberies. He stated that the other accusations in the Yediot article were false or distorted. Goldstone also stated to the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz that his "..approach was that it was better to fight from inside than not at all. The moral dilemma came up when I had to apply the law", adding that he has "..always been against the death penalty. But when I accepted the position to the bench I had to honor the oath of office.." and that he "upheld a majority of appeals in the Supreme Court, as one of three judges on a panel".

Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz has compared Goldstone's judicial role in apartheid South Africa to that of Nazi war criminals. "Goldstone took a job as an apartheid judge. He allowed dozens of black people who were unfairly tried to be executed," Dershowitz told to Israeli Channel 2 TV. "You know, a lot of people say we just followed the law, German judges… That's what Mengele said too. That was Mengele's defense and that was what everybody said in Nazi Germany. 'We just followed the law.' When you are in an apartheid country like South Africa, you don't follow the law" Dershowitz added.

Former head of Department of Justice criminal division Office of Special Investigations Neal Sher has accused Goldstone of being "instrumental in effectuating and legitimizing a regime universally known for its widespread human rights abuses." Sher claims recently disclosed information regarding Goldstone’s apartheid-era rulings raises questions about whether he is eligible to enter the United States. According to Sher, "individuals who admit to acts that constitute a crime of moral turpitude¨are ineligible to enter the US." He believes Goldstone's admission could potentially "fit within" the provisions that would prevent Goldstone from entering the US.

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 [Conn.]: 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'".

External links

• Interview One-on-One with Judge Goldstone @ Leadel.NET
• Law and the search for justice: Conversation with Justice Goldstone
• TIME magazine: The Cape Crusader: South African wants a permanent international court to try war criminals
• Profile of Justice Richard J. Goldstone
• The NS Interview: Richard Goldstone