James A. Goldston is the executive director of the Open Society Justice Initiative, which advances the rule of law and rights protection worldwide through advocacy, litigation, research, and the promotion of legal capacity. A leading practitioner of international human rights and criminal law, Goldston has litigated several groundbreaking cases before the European Court of Human Rights and United Nations treaty bodies, including on issues of counterterrorism, racial discrimination, and torture.
Goldston previously served as coordinator of prosecutions and senior trial attorney in the Office of the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court.
He was also the legal director of the Budapest-based European Roma Rights Centre; director general for human rights of the Mission to Bosnia-Herzegovina of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe; and prosecutor in the Office of the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, where he focused on organized crime.
Goldston is a graduate of Columbia College and Harvard Law School. He has taught at Columbia Law School and Central European University and is currently Adjunct Professor of Law at NYU.
James A. Goldston will moderate the World Justice Forum's Plenary Session #2: Success Stories and will participate in the working session Bridging the Justice Gap with Strategic Human Rights Litigation.