International Human Rights Law Challenges to the New International Criminal Court: The Search and Seizure Right to Privacy

Abstract

This Article argues that although the Rome Statute drafters13 excised express reference to the search and seizure right to privacy from the ICC treaty and collateral instruments, the right survives, and remains implicit therein. The search and seizure right to privacy is an "internationally recognized human right" under the Rome Statute's article 21(3). It falls within the Court's enumerated sources of applicable law. Though arrests of persons and other detentions are seizures, and therefore implicate privacy interests, those privacy interests will not be analyzed in this Article. This Article primarily focuses on searches and seizures related to places and things, including searches of persons.