Podcast appearances and mentions of James A Goldston

Turning to domestic and international courts through strategic litigation has been central to global human rights activism for decades. It is a strategy that has been used to create long lasting social change in laws and public policies with the goal of advancing human rights. For some, litigation in the name of human rights has been a great success, making the human rights movement stronger by increasing its judicial power. For others, human rights litigation remains a 'hollow hope'. It brings minimalistic, slow and fragile gains at best or, at worst, gives rise to social and political backlash. The recent decay of the rule of law in many parts of the world further puts the role of litigation and courts as engines of human rights change into question. Can strategic litigation help promote long lasting human rights change or is it merely a hindrance? Can it be done differently to increase effectiveness? What’s does the future hold for strategic litigation for human rights in an age of illiberal democracies and authoritarianism? On 13 June 2019 Wolfgang Kaleck, Founder and Secretary General of the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), and Başak Çalı, Professor of International Law at the Hertie School of Governance and Director of the Center for Global Public Law at Koç University, debated the issue at the Hertie School of Governance. The discussion was chaired by James A. Goldston, Executive Director of the Open Society Justice Initiative. More about the event here: https://www.hertie-school.org/en/debatingthefutureofstrategichumanrightslitigation/

The International Criminal Court in The Hague is facing fundamental questions about its performance at every level. What might reform might look like?. Speakers: Phil Clark, James A. Goldston, Maina Kiai, Jennifer Trahan. (Recorded: Mar 14, 2019)

In our latest episode of “On Human Rights," we sat down with James A. Goldston. He is the executive director of the Open Society Justice Initiative and a leading practitioner of international human rights and criminal law. He has litigated cases before the European court of Human Rights and United Nations treaty bodies. For example, he has worked on issues of counterterrorism, racial discrimination, and torture. Goldston says the challenges that illiberal movements and leaders pose to human rights is a moment of reckoning for many. He says: “I think it’s a moment for self-reflection perhaps on strategies for things we might have pursued or things we’ve overlooked. And a moment of genuine possibility for us to reimagine what the human rights movement can be, how it can relate not just to the grand architecture and formal laws and institutions which are created, which are important, but also to how people experience rights in practice, or the absence of rights in practice.” In addition, Goldston believes increasing attention to the connection between the formal laws and institutions and the conditions of people on the ground is where parts of the human rights movement are headed. “And I think that’s a positive thing,” he says.