Article 21(3) of the ICC Statute and 'Internationally Recognised Human Rights' as a Source of Mandatory Judicial Dialogue

It is a common view that a strict distinction should be maintained between human rights case law and human rights law proper. The authority of human rights norms would be general, while human rights jurisprudence would only consist of the casuistic application of these norms to a specific case. This chapter seeks to nuance this view, with specific reference to the cross-fertilisation phenomenon before the International Criminal Court. It shows that, in its early practice, the permanent ICC has repeatedly relied on human rights case law, not because it was merely choosing to do so, but more particularly, because it considered the relevant findings to be binding as 'internationally recognised human rights' in the meaning of Article 21(3) of the Rome Statute. By focusing on these instances of mandatory reference to the practice of human rights bodies, this chapter also contributes to the existing literature on 'internationally recognised human rights', through an account of the ICC's own perspective on this crucial notion.