Richard Goldstone

Richard J. Goldstone, (born October 26th, 1938), South African judge and international war crimes prosecutor.

Judge and Justice

South Africa

Richard J. Goldstone was 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 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.

Chief UN Prosecutor in Yugoslavia and Rwanda

From 1994 to 1996, Goldstone served as the chief prosecutor of the Nuremberg", which examines the political and legal influence the Nuremberg trials have had over contemporary war crime proceedings.

Awards and honorary degrees

In 1994, Goldstone received the International Human Rights Award of the American Bar Association. 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, 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.