Date:                      November 5, 2007

When:                    Noon – 1 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. – 9 p.m.

Where:                   John Rogers Hall

Justice Richard J. Goldstone is globally renowned for his experience in international law and global politics. On November 5, he will bring that unique perspective to the University of Tulsa for the Lectureship in Politics and Law.

Justice Goldstone will speak twice at the TU College of Law, 3120 E. Fourth Place.  An early lecture on the Constitutional Court of South Africa will be held at noon in Room 202, with the evening presentation, "Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and Darfur: The Future of International Criminal Justice," scheduled for 7:30 p.m. in the Price & Turpen Courtroom.  Both speeches are free and open to the public.

Throughout his career, Goldstone has been devoted to promoting human rights in his own country and around the world.  His commitment to this cause was evident early on, when, as a student activist at the University of Witwatersrand, his involvement in the fight against apartheid brought him into unsolicited contact with the South African security police.

After graduating and building a successful legal practice, Goldstone accepted an acting appointment as a judge on the Transvaal Supreme Court. He was convinced that he could play a more active role in efforts to positively influence South Africa’s discriminatory laws by accepting the appointment than by continuing to pursue a lucrative commercial career in the law.  He accepted a permanent appointment to that court in 1980. In 1989, he was appointed Judge of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in South Africa.

In 1991, the parties to the National Peace Accord in South Africa chose Goldstone to serve as Chairperson of the Commission of Inquiry regarding Public Violence and Intimidation.  This body, which became known as the "Goldstone Commission," investigated criminal conduct that accompanied the transition from apartheid to the new, democratic South Africa.

In 1994, South African President Nelson Mandela designated Richard Goldstone as a justice of the country’s new Constitutional Court.  That same year, the United Nations Security Council elected him to serve as Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. In this capacity, Justice Goldstone established himself as one of the pioneers of international criminal justice.

For more information, contact associate professor of TU political science Jeff Hockett at (918) 631-2796.