In a stunning turn-around from past performance, the UN Human Rights Council, a body which usually choses biased rapporteurs to reach a pre-determined result, has chosen South African jurist and renowned international criminal law expert, Richard Goldstone, to conduct the inquiry into war crimes revolving around the Israeli incursion into Gaza.
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Goldstone has the unquestioned credentials to conduct this inquiry. From 1994 to 1996, he served as the Prosecutor for both the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). A South African native, he served for 9 years as a Justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa. He also served on the Voelker Commission, which investigated corruption in the UN regarding the Iraq Oil for Food Program. And he currently serves on the boards of Human Rights Watch, Physicians for Human Rights, the International Center for Transitional Justice, the Center for Economic and Social Rights and the Brandeis Center for Ethics, Justice and Public Life. He has written numerous law review articles on international humantiarian law, and is the author of For Humanity: Reflections of a War Crimes Investigator.
Goldstone has an impeccable reputation for integrity and professional rectitude. That, and the fact that he is Jewish, will place the new Israeli government in a difficult position. Normally, the UN chooses rapporteurs whose anti-Israel bias is so apparent, that it becomes an easy matter for Israel to deny entry to them. It is a game that both sides play. After the rapporteur reports back about the lack of cooperation from the Isralis, Arab states decry that lack of cooperation and call for sanctions against Israel. Israel, in turn, points to the fundamental unfairness of the inqurier and his brief. In the end, the inquiry is turned into an exercise in scoring political points, rather than a serious attempt to discover the truth and seek justice.
That will not be the case here. Goldstone's reputation for honest and unbiased inquiry will make it difficult for the new government to refuse him entry. Furthermore, his brief will be to investigate possible war crimes on both sides.
It is not at all certain that Israel will permit the inquiry to go ahead. However, an unbiased and balanced inquiry into possible violations of international humanitarian law by both sides is in the interests of peace in the region. I am a supporter of Israel, but a nuanced one. I do not support the wholesale withholding of US aid to Israel, but I do beleive that the Obama Administration needs to pressure Israel to permit Judge Goldstone's inquiry to proceed. It can advance the cause of peace. It can advance the cause of international humanitarian law. And, doing so can move the UN Human Rights Council away from the depths of authoritarian folly into which it has fallen.