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Online Directory | Alumni Association | Class Notes & News | Alumni Events
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Mentor Program | Alumni Services |  Class of 2006 | Contact Us | Alumni & Giving Home
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Justice Richard J. Goldstone to Address 2006 Graduates Justice Richard J. Goldstone is one of the world's outstanding jurists. Throughout his career, including his nine years as a Justice on the Constitutional Court of South Africa and two years (1994-1996) as Chief Prosecutor of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, he has used the law to promote, and expand international human rights. Richard Goldstone was born in 1938 and educated at the University of the Witwatersrand, where he graduated with a BA LLB cum laude in 1962. After graduation, he practiced law in Johannesburg. In 1980, he began his judicial career with an appointment as Judge of the Transvaal Supreme Court. In 1989 he was appointed Judge of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, and then in 1994, he was named, by President Nelson Mandela, to be a Justice on the Constitutional Court of South Africa, where he served until 2003. In addition to his distinguished service on the South African courts, he has served in a wide variety of other prestigious and important posts. From 1991-1994, he served as Chairperson of the Commission of Inquiry regarding Public Violence and Intimidation that came to be known as the Goldstone Commission. He was the Chairperson of the Standing Advisory Committee of Company Law from 1984 to 2004. During 1998 he was the chairperson of a high level group of international experts that met in Valencia, Spain, and drafted a Declaration of Human Duties and Responsibilities for the Director General of UNESCO (the Valencia Declaration). From August 1999 until December 2001, he was the chairperson of the International Independent Inquiry on Kosovo. In December 2001 he was appointed as the co-chairperson of the International Task Force on Terrorism, which was established by the International Bar Association. From 1999 to 2003 he served as a member of the International Group of Advisers of the International Committee of the Red Cross. From 1985 to 2000, Justice Goldstone was National President of the National Institute of Crime Prevention and the Rehabilitation of Offenders (NICRO). He is chairperson of the Bradlow Foundation, a charitable educational trust. In April 2004, he was appointed by the Secretary-General of the United Nations to the Independent International Committee, chaired by Paul Volcker, to investigate the Iraq Oil for Food program. Justice Goldstone's other responsibilities have included serving as the Chancellor of the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, and as a member of the Board of its School of Law. He was a Governor of the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, and from 1997 to 2004, he served as the President of World ORT (an international technical and technology training organisation). He was also a member of an international panel established in August 1997 by the Government of Argentina to monitor the Argentinean Inquiry to elucidate Nazi Activities in the Argentine Republic since 1938. He has received many awards for his work, among them the International Human Rights Award of the American Bar Association (1994). Justice Goldstone is the recipient of numerous Honorary Doctorates of Law from law schools all over the world, including the Universities of Cape Town, Witwatersrand, and Natal, the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, the University of Notre Dame, the University of Glasgow, the University of Calgary, Emory University, Princeton University, the University of Wales, Duke University and Brandeis University. He is an Honorary Bencher of the Inner Temple, London, an Honorary Member of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, and a Fellow of the Weatherhead Centre for International Affairs at Harvard University. He is a Foreign Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was a member of the faculty of the Salzburg Seminar in 1996, 1998 and co-chaired sessions on International Law in 2001 and 2003. In October 2005 he shared with Louise Arbour, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Thomas J. Dodd Prize in International Justice and Human Rights. Since retiring from the Constitutional Court of South Africa, Justice Goldstone has held visiting professorships at a number of distinguished law schools, and he remains active in a number of human rights organizations, and is a member of the Boards of Human Rights Watch, Physicians for Human Rights, the International Center for Transitional Justice and the Center for Economic and Social Rights, and is a Director of the American Arbitration Association. He is a member of the committee of Harvard University's Project on Justice in Times of Transition. He chairs the advisory board of the Institute for Historical Justice and Reconciliation and is a member of the Advisory Board of the Brandeis University Center for Ethics, Justice and Public Life. His most recent appointment is co-chair of the Human Rights Institute of the International Bar Association. Brooklyn Law School is honored to welcome Justice Goldstone, a global champion of the rule of law, and to award him its highest degree.
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