Procedural Fairness in the International Criminal Court

The specificities of the legal and institutional design of the International Criminal Court (ICC) impact on the configuration of procedural fairness as it applies within its legal regime. The content and scope of this principle at the ICC differs from interpretations given to it by the United Nations ad hoc tribunals. This chapter brings into sharper relief the ICC’s distinctive features that have a bearing on its parameters of fairness, including, but not limited to, the accused’s right to a fair trial. It addresses how far the ICC has advanced in developing the paradigm of fairness adapted to its procedural context. Some aspects of the ICC’s practice stand to be challenged as infringing rather than merely re-interpreting this principle. The question is then, how fatal the taint of a less-than-perfect procedural justice is to the ICC that was conceived as a role model of fairness