The International Criminal Court and the Treatment of Defence Rights: A Mirror of the European Court of Human Rights' Jurisprudence?

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has been a mirror of the European Court of Human Rights when defining the scope of defence rights and limiting their exercise on public interest grounds. The ICC has been consistently deferential to the Strasbourg Court in the interpretation of the accused's rights to disclosure of evidence and to cross-examine prosecution witnesses, leaving the door open for a virtual theory of implied external limitations upon defence rights. The ICC has nevertheless failed to provide a rationale, besides its non-systematic reference to the ICC Statute's human rights enabling clause, when cross-fertilising with the Strasbourg Court. The latter has not only exerted influence over other international human rights monitoring bodies but also accounted for judicial developments within domestic and international fora when tailoring its own human rights standards. The ICC has overall proven to be a promising platform for extrapolating regional interpretations of fair trial rights to the international legal order.