The International Criminal Court as the Principal Authority for Defining the Boundaries of its own Human Rights Obligations

This paper addresses the applicability of human rights standards to the activity of the International Criminal Court. It argues that, in practice, the Court itself is the key authority when it comes to determining the content of its own human rights obligations. This paradox is due to the fact that the only two legal constructions on which the ICC can convincingly and practically be said to be bound by human rights law – i.e. those that are respectively based on general sources of international law and on the Court’s founding treaty – leave much discretion to the interpreter as to the content of the resulting duties.