ABSTRACT
This chapter highlights the main arguments for, and against, accepting cultural defences in domestic law and has underscored some difficulties when transplanting these arguments to the level of the International Criminal Court (ICC). One of the main arguments put forward by proponents of the cultural defence is that international human rights law places an obligation on States to respect the culture of people within their jurisdiction. The argument that cultural defences should be accepted to ensure the right to a fair trial may have more traction than the right to culture argument as it is a more widely known, and accepted, right, and has a firm place in the domestic law of democratic States. Transplanting cultural defences to the international criminal law level raises questions as to what extent international human rights provisions on the rights to culture, and the right to religion, impact on the ICC, as human rights treaties bind States and not courts.
