12/8/97

CONTACT: Wendy Linden, Stanford Law School (650) 723-2232,
Elaine C. Ray, News Service (650) 723-7162;

EDITORS: Media representatives must pick up press credentials at 4 p.m. in Room 290 of Stanford Law School on the day of the lecture.

South Africa's Goldstone to Deliver Law School Lecture

The Hon. Richard J. Goldstone, Justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa, will speak at 5 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 13, in Room 290 of Stanford Law School. His lecture, "Past Violations of Human Rights: War Crimes Tribunals or Truth Commissions?" is free and open to the public. Seating will begin at 4:30 p.m. A reception will follow the program.

Justice Goldstone was invited by the Law School to deliver the lecture as part of its Herman Phleger Visiting Professorship. An endowment for the professorship provides for a person of high distinction in law to deliver public lectures at Stanford and otherwise participate in the intellectual life of the university. Previous Phleger professors have included then President of Ireland Mary Robinson, former U.S. Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach, and Mikhail Gorbachev, former president of the Soviet Union.

Justice Goldstone began his legal career as an advocate at the Johannesburg Bar. In 1976 he was appointed senior counsel, and in 1980 he became a judge on the Transvaal Supreme Court. He went on to be appointed a judge in the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in 1989, before rising in July 1994 to his current position as a justice on South Africa's highest court.

An internationally recognized advocate for human rights, Justice Goldstone chaired South Africa's Commission of Inquiry Regarding Public Violence and Intimidation, which came to be known as the Goldstone Commission (1991-94). He also served as chief prosecutor of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda (1994-96). Justice Goldstone is the chairperson of the country's Standing Advisory Committee on Company Law; president of South Africa's National Institute of Crime Prevention and the Rehabilitation of Offenders (NICRO); chairperson of the Bradlow Foundation, a charitable educational trust; head of the board of the Human Rights Institute of South Africa (HURISA); and a member of the International Panel established by the Government of Argentina to monitor the Argentine Inquiry to Elucidate Nazi Activities in the Argentine Republic since 1938.

In addition to his judicial and diplomatic responsibilities, Justice Goldstone is chancellor of the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, and a board member of its School of Law. He is also a governor of Hebrew University, Jerusalem, and president of the World Organization for Rehabilitation through Training Union (ORT). Among the numerous awards bestowed on the Justice in recognition of his distinguished career in law and public service are the International Human Rights Award of the American Bar Association (1994) and nine honorary degrees from universities around the world. He holds a BA and an LLB cum laude from the University of the Witwatersrand.

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By Wendy Linden