Here Comes Another Goldstone Report

Remember South African former judge Richard Goldstone? Chief author of the biased and discredited 2009 Goldstone Report for the UN’s discredited “Human Rights Council,” on the Israel-Gaza conflict? One might have supposed that after that debacle — in which even Goldstone himself finally admitted, late in the day, that he had erred  — Goldstone would hang up his spurs. Instead, he’s back in action, now vetting the qualifications of judges to fill six seats coming open on the International Criminal Court (ICC) — which is where Palestinian officials, if they can get a foothold, would like to see Israelis prosecuted for war crimes. Goldstone is now chairing a five-member panel, assessing the qualifications of new judges for the ICC, and is due to produce a report this fall.

This round, Goldstone is not acting under the auspices of the United Nations, but he’s about as close as he can get without jockeying for parking space in the UN garage. The umbrella organization now employing his services is a nonprofit with offices in New York and the Hague, called the World Federalist Movement/Institute for Global Policy. This outfit, which enjoys consultative status with the UN, runs a program called the Coalition for the International Criminal Court (CICC), which is dedicated to advising and promoting the ICC.

Is Goldstone perhaps bending over backwards to make amends for the slant of the 2009 Goldstone Report? He has not answered my emailed queries about this, so I don’t know what his intentions are. But as chair of the CICC’s “Independent Panel on ICC Judicial Elections,” he has embedded himself among a throng of former UN good ol’ boys (and gals), who hail from the same UN ethos that produced the Goldstone Report. For instance, the CICC’s advisory board is chaired by former secretary-general Kofi Annan, and includes one of Goldstone’s coauthors of the Goldstone Report, Pakistani lawyer Hina Jilani, along with former High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour. More on this scene in my article for NRO, “Goldstone Returns.”