USD Magazine Fall 2005

[ g a z i n g o u t w a r d ]

THE ELOQUENT ADVOCATE Just ice Richard Goldstone stands up for the downtrodden

W hen most young peo- ple head off to college, their long-term ambi- tions tend to be on the vague side. When he left home in the late 1950s, Justice Richard Goldstone certainly didn’t plan to wind up an important player in international human rights. Now a worldwide leader in fighting atrocities like genocide and war crimes, as a youth he hadn’t given much thought to those suffering under apartheid in his native South Africa. “I came from a typical upper- middle class white home,” he recalls. “I had never met black South Africans as equals during my school days.” But while attending a Johannesburg university where black students were treated as equals to whites, he saw that off campus, those same students were harassed by police and had to return to the poverty of black townships where they read by the dim light of oil lamps. Goldstone’s passion for justice was roused. He went on to prac- tice law, but didn’t stop there, going on to ultimately become a justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa, where from 1994 to 2003 he helped oversee his country’s transition into democracy. USD is lucky to have him this semester, when he will conduct a seminar on international criminal justice at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice and teach a seminar at the law school. “One of the problems with a large and powerful country like by Kelly Knufken

the U.S. is that it tends to be inward-looking,” Goldstone says. “It’s wonderful to see the Joan B. Kroc Institute bringing the whole world to the doorsteps of the students.” Those students will learn from a man whose career is filled with worldly experiences: chief prose- cutor of the U.N.’s International Criminal Tribunals for the former

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Yugoslavia and Rwanda; member of the Independent Inquiry Committee that is investigating the U.N. Oil for Food program in Iraq; chairman of South Africa’s Commission of Inquiry Regarding Public Violence and Intimidation, known as the Goldstone Commission because of his role; and chairman of the International Independent Inquiry on Kosovo. “The reason he’s held those positions is the kind of human being he is,” says IPJ Executive Director Joyce Neu. “He’s such an articulate spokesperson for those who’ve had their rights trampled. He gives us all a lesson. He’s a truly humane, decent person who shows great integrity in his work.”

DOUG MCLAUGHLIN

I wanted to say, and I knew there was a voice missing. But the moment I saw it on the big screen, with all these people in the theater, I was just hooked.” She laughs, her doe eyes gleam- ing. “I thought, ‘This is what I’m meant to do.’” For more information on Pop+Culture and Stirling, go to www.popculturefilm.com.

Stirling’s journey toward realizing her dreams. She says that making the film was like attending a four-year film school, since she played every role — from inter- viewer to cinematographer to editor to lighting coordinator. When she rented out a La Jolla auditorium earlier this year and put on a premiere, it was the cul- mination of this particular dream. “I knew I had a message

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