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April 09, 2005

Former Chief Prosecutor of the UN International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda

Richard J. Goldstone, formerly the chief prosecutor for the UN’s International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, will speak at The Fletcher School at Tufts University this Tues, Ap. 12 at 4:30 p.m. in ASEAN Auditorium. His speech, “The Future of International Criminal Justice,” is sponsored by Fletcher’s Institute of Human Security.

Justice Goldstone has had a long and distinguished career in the human rights area. A graduate of the University of the Witwatersrand with a BA LLB cum laude, he began his career in South Africa 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. In 1989 he was appointed Judge of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court. From July 1994 to October 2003, he was a Justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa.

From 1991-1994, he served as Chairperson of the Commission of Inquiry regarding Public Violence and Intimidation, which came to be known as the Goldstone Commission. From 1994-1996, he served as the Chief Prosecutor of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.

In 1998, he was the chairperson of a high-level group of international experts, which met in Valencia, Spain, and drafted a Declaration of Human Duties and Responsibilities for the Director General of UNESCO (the Valencia Declaration)

From 1999-2001, he was the chairperson of the International Independent Inquiry on Kosovo. In December 2001 he was appointed as the chairperson of the International Task Force on Terrorism that was established by the International Bar Association.

The many awards he has received locally and internationally include the International Human Rights Award of the American Bar Association (1994) and Honorary Doctorates of Law from universities in Canada, Israel, the Netherlands, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States. He is an Honorary Bencher of the Inner Temple, London, an Honorary Fellow of St Johns College, Cambridge, an Honorary Member of the Association of the Bar of New York, and a Fellow of the Weatherhead Centre for International Affairs of Harvard University. He is a Foreign Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Since 1996, he has been a regular member of the faculty of the Salzburg Seminar.

Mr. Goldstone is presently the Henry Shattuck Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard Law School.

Posted by jessica at April 9, 2005 01:28 PM