The goldstone report and the goldstone retreat: Truths told by law and reviled by geopolitics

Abstract

The Goldstone Report gained its prominence because of its UN auspices and the high credibility of Richard Goldstone as the Chair of the Fact Finding Mission appointed by the Human Rights Council. Other reputable inquiries (John Dugard’s parallel mission set up by the Arab League, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch), aside from a host of journalistic and credible eyewitness accounts, converged on the overall criminality under international law of Operation Cast Lead. The video reports, together with the 100:1 casualty ratio, reinforced this impression, which has since been further validated by the testimony of IDF soldiers, diaries of persons living in Gaza at the time, by the Norwegian film Tears of Gaza, as well as by informal reports by UN staff stationed at the time of the attacks in Gaza. What the Goldstone Report did was to provide greater detail, especially in relation to several incidents, a set of recommendations for further action, and significantly, encouragement for accountability by way of the less conventional means of Universal Jurisdiction (application of norms of international criminal law by national courts against persons charged with violations regardless of where perpetrated) and civil society action.