Richard Goldstone

A study of judicial activities of Richard Goldstone as an apartheid judge and as a prosecutor at the Hague. The record shows that a judge serving under apartheid was compromised both ethically and morally and that there is a case to answer for possible criminal liability for crimes against humanity. Richard Goldstone was such a man. Under apartheid he sentenced black youths to death, confirmed detention without trial during apartheid's most brutal period, exonerated apartheid police offers who applied racial sex laws, and used judicial commissions to pursue his own personal ambitions. Such a man should not be a representative of international law and human rights. Goldstone's judicial record should have disqualified him from serving at the behest of the UN Human Rights Council and on the board of Human Rights Watch. The prominence of Richard Goldstone in the human rights community in view of his past record is testament to the moral poverty of the latter day human rights movement and institutions.