Richard Goldstone, who has a firm handshake and a steely gaze, is not someone who minces words. "Absolutely untrue" is how he dismissed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's contention yesterday that the Goldstone report highlighting war crimes by Israelis and Hamas during the recent Gaza War was politically biased. Goldstone was speaking at the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC yesterday evening, where he delivered the inaugural Lloyd N. Cutler Lecture on the Rule of Law, which was sponsored by the Salzburg Global Seminar. Goldstone has been on something of a road show-last week he defended his report in a debate with former-Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Dore Gold at Brandeis University.

But the substance of Goldstone's talk last night was not specifically his report on Gaza. Instead, he offered a tour d'horizon of the progress of international law in recent decades, which, in effect, served to help explain his recent role in the Middle East. At botto...