Well aware of these irregularities, the ICC concluded an agreement with Belgium in 2014 to fix the conditions of provisional release for individuals freed on Belgian territory while awaiting court decisions. Belgium was the first state to accept to receive detainees within this framework (the only one to date), but the agreement has not resulted in any practical application. “It does show, however, that the ICC is aware that respect for human rights is an obligation and that it must attribute the necessary resources to this”, says Christophe Deprez. 

According to Christophe Deprez, references to the respect for human rights are more pronounced within the statutory framework of the ICC than in the international criminal tribunals set up for the ex-Yugoslavia and Rwanda (4). “The Rome Statute establishes a distinction, for the first time within the context of international criminal justice, between the rights of all individuals concerned by an investigation (article 55) and those of individuals who are actually accused (article 67)”, writes the author. The Rome Statute (article 85) also guarantees compensation for an individual who is unjustly detained, which was not guaranteed by previous international criminal tribunals. Mathieu Ngudjolo, acquitted in 2012 after forty years of provisional detention, recently filed a compensation claim based on this provision. He will probably be awarded a sum of money”.  

Eurocentric tendency     

Christophe Deprez reveals that judges often rely on human rights jurisprudence in order to frame their own verdicts.  They particularly focus on the practice of the European Court of Human Rights as a source of inspiration in human rights matters and under-use the work of the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights. This is an astonishing tendency for a Court that, for the most part, has only dealt with cases concerning African nationals. “European pre-eminence can be clearly proven in the context of the ICC. There is a plethora of examples where the judges base their reasoning on various judgements by the Strasbourg Court without mentioning the slightest equivalent from another regional or universal system of protection”, writes Christophe Deprez.  

The ICC has been established to judge the authors of the most serious crimes… Is it really necessary to strive to ensure respect for every human right of the worst criminals? “The purpose of human rights is not to prevent or halt the repression of crimes but to ensure that boundaries are put down to ensure that we do not go beyond just repression”, says Christophe Deprez. “They are a limit to the power exercised over individuals. There would be no point in fixing these limits if we could delay them when they are useful, it would be inconsistent to relax human rights requirements in the context of the most serious crimes. Ruthlessly prosecuting people would create a cycle of violence instead of pacifying relations. Social balance requires a certain reserve which is permitted by the respect for human rights. The ICC seems to be receptive to these boundaries. This is something to be happy about, but because there also remains some contentious points, we need to ensure that the in future the court adheres to the total respect of the standards it claims to defend

(4)The tribunals for the ex-Yugoslavia and Rwanda are subsidiary organs of the UN Security Council while the ICC is an independent international organisation.