About this site

This resource is hosted by the Nelson Mandela Foundation, but was compiled and authored by Padraig O’Malley. It is the product of almost two decades of research and includes analyses, chronologies, historical documents, and interviews from the apartheid and post-apartheid eras.

Goldstone, Richard

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Richard Goldstone was born in 1938. After graduating from the University of the Witwatersrand with a BA LLB cum laude in 1962 he practised as an Advocate at the Johannesburg Bar. In 1980 he was made Judge of the Transvaal Supreme Court. In 1989 he was appointed Judge of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court. He headed a number of high-profile commissions of enquiry, including investigations into violence in the township of Sebokeng (1990), and a wider enquiry, known as the Goldstone Commission, into public violence and intimidation (from 1991 to 1994).

From July 1994 to October 2003 he was a Justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa.

From 15 August 1994 to September 1996 he served as the Chief Prosecutor of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. From August 1999 until December 2001he 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. He is a director of the American Arbitration Association. From 1999 to 2003 he served as a member of the International Group of Advisers of the International Committee of the Red Cross. He is presently a member of the committee appointed by the Secretary-General of the United Nations to investigate allegations regarding the Iraq Oil for Food Program.

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 a number of universities. 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 member of the Boards of Human Rights Watch and Physicians for Human Rights and a Director of the American Arbitration Association. He is a Foreign Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He also serves on the committee of Harvard University's Project on Justice in Times of Transition.

He is married to Noleen and has two married daughters and four grandsons.

This resource is hosted by the Nelson Mandela Foundation, but was compiled and authored by Padraig O’Malley. Return to theThis resource is hosted by the site.