Civilians in War Zones

Thursday, January 20, 2011
5:30 PM - 7:00 PM
(Pacific)
CISAC Conference Room
Speaker: 
  • Richard Goldstone,
  • James Campbell,
  • Peter Berkowitz

Richard Goldstone served on South Africa's Transvaal Supreme Court from 1980 to 1989 and the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court from 1990 to 1994. During the transition from apartheid to multiracial democracy, Goldstone headed the Goldstone Commission investigations into political violence in South Africa. He was credited with playing an indispensable role in the transition and became a household name in South Africa, attracting widespread international support and interest. Goldstone's work investigating violence led to him being nominated to serve as the first chief prosecutor of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda. On his return to South Africa he took up a seat on the newly-established Constitutional Court of South Africa. In 2009, Goldstone led an independent fact-finding mission created by the UN Human Rights Council to investigate international human rights and humanitarian law violations related to the Gaza War.

James Campbell's research focuses on African American history and the wider history of the black Atlantic. He is particularly interested in the long history of interconnections and exchange between Africa and America, a history that began in the earliest days of the transatlantic slave trade and continues into our own time.  In recent years, his research has moved in the direction of so-called “public history," the ways in which societies tell stories about their pasts, not only in textbooks and academic monographs but also in historic sites, museums, memorials, movies, and political movements.

Peter Berkowitz is the Tad and Dianne Taube Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford. He is cofounder and director of the Israel Program on Constitutional Government, a member of the Policy Advisory Board at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and served as a senior consultant to the President's Council on Bioethics. His scholarship focuses on the interplay of law, ethics, and politics in modern society. His current research is concerned with the material and moral preconditions of liberal democracy in America and abroad.