"The Goldstone report must be taken seriously"
The so called Goldstone report was published on 15 September. A UN- appointed commission led by Richard Goldstone has put together a 575 pages analysis of the Israeli incursion into the Gaza Strip in December 2008 and January 2009. The incursion led to the death of almost 1400 Palestinians and 13 Israeli soldiers. The report describes the destruction of hospitals, the parliament and other government buildings, Gaza´s main prison, tens of thousands of civilian homes and many other civilian targets.
The report accuses not only Israel but also Hamas – because of its rocket attacks against civilian targets in southern Israel – of war crimes and probably also crimes against humanity. The report exhorts both sides to investigate a number of carefully documented incidents within six months. In the event of non-compliance with this request, the report recommends the UN Security Council to refer the investigations to the International Criminal Court.
The Goldstone report has led to very strong reactions – not against the incidents described in the report – but against its conclusions and primarily against Richard Goldstone personally. In a statement on 11 November, Shimon Perez, the president of Israel, described Richard Goldstone as “a small man, devoid of any sense of justice, a technocrat with no real understanding of jurisprudence,” who was “on a one-sided mission to hurt Israel.” (According to a quote in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz). In a debate in the UN Security Council on 4 November the Israeli Ambassador to the UN Gabriela Shalev described the Goldstone report as ”conceived in hate and executed in sin”. If the UN endorses the report, the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Nethanyahu has threatened to withdraw from the peace negotiations with the Palestinians. The Obama administration has criticized the report as “deeply flawed, one-sided and unjust”. The European Union has not been able to present a unified response. Despite these negative reactions, nobody seems to have been able to challenge the report on a factual basis.
Richard Goldstone is one of the world’s leading authorities on international law. During the 1990s he was the first Chief Prosecutor of the UN tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. Goldstone has had a strong influence on the development of international criminal law, brought about by these tribunals. It was Goldstone who decided to prosecute the systematic rapes during the war in Bosnia as war crimes and crimes against humanity, these prosecutions led to the conviction of three Serbs to life sentences for crimes against humanity, including systematic rape and torture. That precedent has paved the way for a new perception of systematic violence against women that is often part of the strategy in ongoing and recent armed conflicts, such as in the Congo and Darfur. This, in turn, has resulted in new prosecutions and convictions. Perhaps most importantly, today victims of sexual violence are recognised and seen in a different light.
Richard Goldstone is Jewish. He describes himself as a Zionist and sits on the board of governors of the Hebrew University, one of Israels most prestigious academic institutions.
The turbulence surrounding the ICC´s indictment of the president of Sudan earlier this year – which was supported by the US and EU – prompted the Secretary General of the UN to make the following statement on the 10th anniversary of the ICC on 17 July:” ‘We must seek to strike the correct balance between the duty of justice and the pursuit of peace. Impunity for crimes can never be tolerated; amnesties for international crimes are unacceptable. When confronted with these dilemmas, we must never sacrifice justice; crucially, the search for a balance between justice and peace should never be influenced by the threats and postures of those seeking to escape justice. This is key.’
Despite the aggressive personal attacks against Richard Goldstone, no one has been able to find any factual faults with the report. Different opinions about the content of international law and about the report’s conclusions are to be expected. But when a lawyer of such stature presents a report of such thoroughness, on a subject of such fundamental importance, respect for public international law and equality before the law require that the report be taken seriously and treated as a legal document and not as a political pamphlet. It is obvious that the purpose of the personal attacks on Goldstone by Shimon Perez and other Israeli leaders is to shoot the messenger and deflect attention from the serious allegations in the report. But the fact that the EU has remained silent and that the US has even been seen to chime in with the Israeli criticism means that the UN Secretary General´s high-minded statement is reduced to empty rhetoric. It also means that the positions of international law have been seriously set back.
When Richard Goldstone accepted the assignment to analyze the legal aspects of the armed conflict in Gaza, he obviously knew that he was about to throw himself into the world´s most inflamed debate concerning international law versus power politics. The aggressive attacks against not only the report, but also against him personally, would not have come as a surprise. Still, in the interest of international law, he accepted.
Prior to the Goldstone report being published, we had decided to give the Stockholm Human Rights Award to Richard Goldstone, for his unusual combination of the highest international legal expertise and his deep compassion for the individual. That motivation can now be expanded to also include his exceptional personal courage in the defense of fundamental principles of international law. On 3 December, Richard Goldstone will come to Stockholm to receive his award.
MARK ELLIS
International Bar Association IBA
ANNE RAMBERG
Swedish Bar Association
CHRISTIAN ÅHLUND
International Legal Assistance Consortium ILAC
The Times ad in support of the Goldstone Report, 1st December 2009
On 1st December a full-page advert appeared in the Times supported by 565 individual signatories and among others, these groups: Independent Jewish Voices, Jews for Justice for Palestinians, the Jewish Forum for Justice and Human Rights.