Richard Goldstone, LL.B., former justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa and international human rights leader, will be the keynote speaker at Fordham Law School’s diploma ceremony on May 20.
Goldstone, who held Fordham’s William Hughes Mulligan Chair in International Human Rights in 2004, and who will return to the Law School as a visitor next year, played a central role in helping end apartheid in South Africa. In 1991, he chaired South Africa’s Commission of Inquiry Regarding Public Violence and Intimidation, which came to be known as the Goldstone Commission. The commission revealed human rights abuses perpetrated by security forces, and its findings undermined the system of apartheid.
From 1994 to 2003, he served as a judge on the South African Constitutional Court. During that time, the court played a key role in the nation’s peaceful transition from apartheid, through an interim constitution, to a constitutional democracy, and helped to establish a foundation for judicial independence in South Africa.
