Richard Goldstone - Academic and Charity Activities

Academic and Charity Activities

In March 1996, Goldstone was named chancellor of the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. He served for two terms, stepping down in September 2006. He was a Global Visiting Professor of Law at New York University School of Law in spring 2004, and in the fall, he was the William Hughes Mulligan Visiting Professor at Fordham University School of Law. In spring 2005, he was the Henry Shattuck Visiting Professor Law at Harvard Law School. Goldstone participated as guest faculty in the Oxford-George Washington International Human Rights Program in 2005.

Goldstone was named the 2007 Weissberg Distinguished Professor of International Studies at Beloit College, in Beloit, Wisconsin. From 17–28 January 2007 he visited classes, worked with faculty and students, participated in panel discussions on human rights and transitional justice with leading figures in the field and delivered the annual Weissberg Lecture, "South Africa's Transition to Democracy: The Role of the Constitutional Court" on 24 January at the Moore Lounge in Pearsons Hall. In Fall 2007 he was the William Hughes Mulligan Professor of International Law at Fordham University School of Law, and held that position again in Fall 2009. Fordham Law presented him with a Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, in 2007, the highest honor the school can bestow. Goldstone also was the Woodrow Wilson Visiting Scholar in Political Science at Washington & Jefferson College in 2009.

From 2004 through 2008, in addition to his teaching appointments, Goldstone was the chair of the Advisory Committee to the Institute for Historical Justice and Reconciliation. In 2008, the Institute became an independent entity, with Goldstone as its chairman. He also continues as a member of the board of directors of the Salzburg Global Seminar. Goldstone serves as a trustee for Link-SA, a charity which funds the tertiary education of South Africans from impoverished backgrounds.

Goldstone serves on the Board of Directors of several nonprofit organizations that promote justice, including Physicians for Human Rights, the International Center for Transitional Justice, the South African Legal Services Foundation, the Brandeis University Center for Ethics, Justice, and Public Life, Human Rights Watch, and the Center for Economic and Social Rights. Goldstone was president of the Jewish training and education charity World ORT between 1997 and 2004. He was an honorary member of the Board of Governors of Hebrew University for over ten years prior to June 2010, when the University announced he had been dropped from the Board due to inactivity "for a decade or more". In April, 2010, Jerusalem lawyer David Schonberg had requested Goldstone be removed from the Board because of the UN report on Gaza. A University spokesperson stated that removing inactive members was a routine procedure, that other inactive members had also been removed, and that Goldstone's removal had "nothing to do with his Report about Gaza".