GOLDSTONE, RICHARD JOSEPH

GOLDSTONE, RICHARD JOSEPH (1938– ), South African judge and international war crimes prosecutor. Born in Boksburg, South Africa, Goldstone was appointed judge of the Transvaal Supreme Court in 1980 and judge of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in 1989. In July, he was appointed to the newly established Constitutional Court of South Africa, a position he held until 2003. From 1991 to 1994, he served as chairperson of the Commission of Inquiry regarding Public Violence and Intimidation, which came to be known as the Goldstone Commission. This led to his appointment as chief prosecutor of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda (1994–96). He was chairman of the committee that drafted a Declaration of Human Duties and Responsibilities for the director general of UNESCO (the Valencia Declaration) in 1998 and afterwards was chairman of the International Independent Inquiry on Kosovo (1999–2001). In April 2004, he was appointed by the secretary-general of the United Nations to the Independent International Committee to investigate the Iraq Oil for Food program. In December that year, he was appointed as co-chairman of the council for the International Bar Association's Human Rights Institute. Goldstone was further involved in many areas of public life, in both the Jewish and general community. He was a governor of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and from 1997 to 2004 served as president of World ORT, an international Jewish education and training charity. His autobiography, For Humanity: Reflections of a War Crimes Investigator, appeared in 2000. (David Saks (2nd ed.)