The degree of objectivity on this Commission can be gauged from the mandate it was given by the UNHRC, which announced it was dispatching an urgent, independent international fact-finding mission, to be appointed by the President of the Council, to investigate all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law by the occupying Power, Israel, against the Palestinian people throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory, particularly in the occupied Gaza Strip, due to the current aggression, and calls upon Israel not to obstruct the process of investigation and to fully cooperate with the mission. So this 'objective' inquiry had been told before it was even established that the guilty party in Gaza was Israel, designated by the UN as the ‘occupying power’; that it was guilty of ‘aggression’ and ‘violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law’; and that the Palestinians of Gaza were the victims of this Israeli aggression. Israel, of course, no longer occupies Gaza. Nor was it guilty of aggression: it was instead defending itself against the aggression of Hamas who had fired some 6000 rockets at Israeli citizens. Nor did it commit any violations of international law and human rights: it was Hamas who did so repeatedly -- not just against Israel but also the Arab inhabitants of Gaza who were used as human shields and mass hostages – and then made false accusations against Israel of committing such violations, falsehoods promulgated as true by the UN. But the aggression and human rights violations committed by Hamas – the cause of the conflict – weren’t even to be considered by this objective, fact-finding Commission. Having been set up on the premise that Israel was guilty, it was directed to gather evidence to support the conclusion that had already been reached. As the Queen in Alice might have said, ‘verdict first, evidence afterwards’. Unless Goldstone has torn up the terms of his mandate, his Commission will possess all the objectivity of the show-trials of Stalin. Publication of this kangaroo court’s report is imminent. There are even suggestions swirling today that it is to be published tomorrow – on the Jewish sabbath, when neither Israel nor the Jewish world can properly respond. That would be entirely in keeping with the malevolent racism and cynicism of this entire operation. Goldstone himself is utterly compromised by accepting the terms of this rigged mandate which is an affront to justice. As Eye on the UN reports, although he claims to have changed this mandate through informal conversations, this is a load of hooey: Goldstone, a lawyer and former judge, knows full well that he has no jurisdiction or authority to change the mandate either alone or in informal conversation with anyone. His claims to the contrary, therefore, are a serious ethical and legal breach both to the critics who have accused him of assuming a position tainted from the outset, and to the Council itself. Now look at the objectivity of the other members of the Commission. Like Goldstone, Ms Hina Jilani and Col Desmond Travers signed a letter last March stating that events in Gaza had ‘shocked us to the core’ and calling for an investigation into ‘crimes perpetrated against civilians by both sides.’ So all three have already declared Israel guilty of such crimes – and as for the other side, their abuses lie outside the Commission’s scope. Now look at the fourth member of this objective ‘fact-finding’ Commission, Christine Chinkin, Professor of International Law at the London School of Economics. Last January, she signed a letter in the Times which stated: ‘Israel's bombardment of Gaza is not self-defence - it's a war crime.’ It went on: ‘The rocket attacks on Israel by Hamas deplorable as they are, do not, in terms of scale and effect amount to an armed attack entitling Israel to rely on self-defence...Israel's actions amount to aggression, not self-defence’. Instead, ‘its invasion and bombardment of Gaza amounts to collective punishment of Gaza’s 1.5m inhabitants contrary to international humanitarian and human rights law’. The letter also referred to ‘the killing of almost 800 Palestinians, mostly civilians’; yet Israel’s official breakdown of Palestinian casualties in Operation Cast Lead showed the vast majority of Palestinians killed were terrorists: According to the data gathered by the Research Department of the Israel Defense Intelligence, there were 1166 names of Palestinians killed during Operation Cast Lead. 709 of them are identified as Hamas terror operatives, amongst them several from various other terror organizations. Additionally, there are 162 names of men that have not yet been attributed to any organization. Furthermore, it has come to our understanding that 295 uninvolved Palestinians were killed during the operation, 89 of them under the age of 16, and 49 of them were women. Israel has also published an authoritative justification of its actions in Gaza under international law. In other words, the letter signed by Chinkin (and other lawyers) was a deplorable farrago of bigotry and ignorance, derived from the boilerplate hostility towards Israel which is now the orthodoxy amongst the British intelligentsia. Nevertheless, 19 British lawyers and academics have now signed an open letterto Chinkin calling upon her to disqualify herself from the Commission on account of her extreme bias. They write: Judge Richard Goldstone, as head of the mission, promised at the outset that it would be impartial. Impartiality requires that fact-finders be free of any commitment to a preconceived outcome. Because you expressed yourself on the merits of the issues prior to seeing any of the evidence, you cannot be considered impartial. ...As a professor of international law at the London School of Economics, you must recognize that your actions have given rise to a reasonable apprehension of bias. As colleagues in the law and academia, each of us committed to fairness and the principle that justice must be seen to be done, we are disappointed that you have refused to step down. Your continued participation necessarily compromises the integrity of this inquiry and its report. Now look at the witnesses who gave ‘evidence’ at this show trial. As NGO Monitor has detailed, many of those chosen to provide testimony in hearings held in Gaza and Geneva were officials from radical NGOs with long histories of anti-Israel campaigning – including Al Haq, the Alternative Information Center (AIC), and the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme (GCMHP). One of the most influential of these NGOs, Human Rights Watch, has a long history of making misleading or false accusations against Israel. As NGO Monitor observes: Since the end of the Gaza conflict, HRW has issued multiple pseudo-research reports alleging Israeli ‘violations’ and ‘war crimes.’ These narrowly focused publications (on highly contested topics: white phosphorous , drones , and white flags ) were designed to maximize the NGO’s public relations campaign, and to advance the Durban Strategy of isolating Israel, despite a complete lack of evidence and substance. After pages of irrelevant details, the claims of ‘war crimes’ remain unproven. Indeed, there is simply no evidence for them. They are smears. But Goldstone himself was actually a member of the HRW board, only resigning from it after his inquiry began. During the 2006 Lebanon War, when HRW was making a series of highly tendentious claims about Israel’s alleged human rights abuses Goldstone sprang to HRW’s defence. How then can he be an objective assessor of its evidence to his own Commission? NGO Monitor observes: A profoundly biased commission having reached its conclusion before it even started finding out the ‘facts’, working to a mandate which declared Israel guilty and gave Hamas a free pass and required evidence to support this malicious falsehood, evidence which it has sought amongst witnesses who overwhelmingly had a history of extreme anti-Israel hostility: unless Richard Goldstone really has managed to change the terms of his mandate, ignored the malice of his witnesses and other commissioners, suppressed his own clearly expressed prior positioning and somehow produced a fair and balanced report, it looks like we are about to witness the next blood libel against Israel wrapped in the spurious mantle of legal and UN authority. If so, it will set in train a new orgy of libellous Israel-bashing, inflaming not just the Arab and Muslim world to yet more genocidal terror but also inciting western public opinion to even more aggression against Israel and the Jews, and notching up yet another victory for the forces of darkness that now threaten the entire world. Richard J. Goldstone (born October 26, 1938) was a South African Constitutional Court judge[1] and leads an independent fact-finding mission created by the United Nations Human Rights Council to investigate international human rights and humanitarian law violations related to the 2008–2009 Israel–Gaza conflict.[1][2] Richard Goldstone is a South African of Jewish descent and married to Noleen Goldstone. They have two daughters (Glenda and Nicole) and four grandsons (Jason, Sean, Ben and Jordan). He graduated from the University of the Witwatersrand with a BA LLB cum laude in 1962.[1] Richard J. Goldstone practised as an Advocate at the Johannesburg Bar.[1] In 1976 he was appointed Senior Counsel and in 1980 was made Judge of the Transvaal Supreme Court.[1] He then served as a judge of the Constitutional Court of South Africa from July 1994 to October 2003,[1] which was entrusted with the task of interpreting the new South African Constitution and supervising the country’s transition intodemocracy. Before taking a seat on the Constitutional Court of South Africa, Goldstone served as chairperson of the South African Standing Commission of Inquiry Regarding Public Violence and Intimidation, later known as the Goldstone Commission.[1] 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, and concluded that political violence was fueled by a "third force". He also 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 Human Rights Institute of South Africa (HURISA). Goldstone served as the chief prosecutor of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda from 15 August 1994 to September 1996.[1] 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. Goldstone was chairperson of the International Independent Inquiry on Kosovo from August 1999 until December 2001.[1] In April 2004, he was appointed by Kofi Annan, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, to the Independent International Committee, chaired by Paul Volcker, to investigate the Iraq Oil for Food program.[1] On the 3 April 2009, Goldstone was named as the head of the independent United Nations fact-finding mission to investigate international human rights and humanitarian law violations related to the 2008–2009 Israel–Gaza conflict, which was established by Resolution S-9/1 of the United Nations Human Rights Council.[1] He responded to the announcement that he was "shocked, as a Jew", to be invited to head the mission.[2] During his five day trip to Gaza, Israel refused to cooperate,[3] forcing Goldstone to enter Gaza through Egypt and refusing his team access to military sources and victims of Hamas rockets. Hamas security often accompanied his team, including during interviews with possible witnesses of the militant group's actions. Citing legal and political impediments to war crimes trials, Goldstone said "From a practical political point of view, I wish I could be optimistic."[4] Goldstone said at a press conference that he was shocked by the scale of destruction in Gaza.[5] From 2004 through 2008, in addition to his teaching appointments, Goldstone was the chair of the Advisory Committee to the Institute for Historical Justice and Reconciliation, an initiative of the Salzburg Global Seminar. In 2008, the Institute became an independent entity, with Goldstone as its chairman.[6] He also continues as a member of the board of directors of the Salzburg Global Seminar.[7] Goldstone serves on the Board of Directors of several nonprofit organizations that promote justice, including Physicians for Human Rights, the International Center for Transitional Justice, the South African Legal Services Foundation, the Brandeis University Center for Ethics, Justice, and Public Life, Human Rights Watch, and the Center for Economic and Social Rights.[8] Goldstone was a Global Visiting Professor of Law at New York University School of Law. Justice Richard J. Goldstone was named the 2007 Weissberg Distinguished Professor of International Studies at Beloit College, in Beloit, Wisconsin. From January 17–28, 2007 he visited classes, worked with faculty and students, participated in panel discussions on human rights and transitional justice with leading figures in the field and delivered the annual Weissberg Lecture, "South Africa's Transition to Democracy: The Role of the Constitutional Court" on January 24th at the Moore Lounge in Pearsons Hall. Justice Goldstone continued teaching at Harvard University until the end of the Spring 2007 semester, after he leaves Beloit College. In Fall 2007 he was made William Hughes Mulligan Professor of International Law at Fordham University School of Law, giving a seminar on "Laws of War and International Criminal Courts." Justice Goldstone has received many prominent awards, including the MacArthur Award for International Justice, announced by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in October 2008, and bestowed in the The Hague in May, 2009.[9] In 1994, Goldstone received theInternational Human Rights Award of the American Bar Association and in 2005 he received the Thomas J. Dodd Prize in International Justice and Human Rights. He holds honorary degrees from Hebrew University, the University of Notre Dame, the University of Maryland, and the Universities of Cape Town, British Columbia, Glasgow, and Calgary among others. He is the 2009 Spinoza Fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIAS). He is an honorary fellow of St Johns College, Cambridge, 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 theCenter for International Affairs of Harvard University. In October 2003, Goldstone gave a lecture entitled "Preventing Deadly Conflict" at the University of San Diego's Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice Distinguished Lecture Series. In April 2005, Goldstone spoke on “The Future of International Criminal Justice,” at the Fletcher School (Tufts University) in Massachusetts. Goldstone is the author of numerous articles on international humanitarian law. He has written forewords to several books, including "Martha Minow’s Beyond Vengeance and Forgiveness: Facing History after Genocide" and "Mass Violence and War Crimes: The Legacy ofNuremberg", which examines the political and legal influence the Nuremberg trials have had over contemporary war crime proceedings. More recently, he has written about the challenge to individual human rights posed by counter-terror measures in R. A. Wilson, ed., "Human Rights in the 'War on Terror'".
The Goldstone show-trial
In the wake of Israel’s Operation Cast Lead in Gaza at the turn of this year, the UN’s satirically named ‘Human Rights Council’ set up what purported to be an objective, fact-finding commission of inquiry under Richard Goldstone, former chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda and a judge of the South African Constitutional Court.Richard Goldstone
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Contents
[hide][edit]Early life
[edit]Law
[edit]South Africa
[edit]Chief UN Prosecutor in Yugoslavia and Rwanda
[edit]Argentina
[edit]Kosovo
[edit]Member of Volcker Commission
[edit]Gaza
[edit]Other activities
[edit]Awards and honors
[edit]Publications
[edit]References
[edit]External links
Tuesday, 15 September 2009
Categories: 1938 births | Living people | South African lawyers | South African people | South African Jews | Old Edwardians (Johannesburg) |Anti-apartheid activists | Harvard Law School faculty | Beloit College faculty | New York University faculty | Fordham University faculty |International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda prosecutors | International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia prosecutors
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