Criminal legal systems and inter-state criminal proceedings were the models that existed when international tribunals were established. Although international tribunals have been based on and thought of in light of two main criminal legal systems, essentially the common law and the continental (or the adversarial and the inquisitorial) systems, they are seen each as a whole, with their own inner balances and basic assumptions. Such an approach might shed light over the criminal system of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and help to see it as a complex singular entity. Shedding light over different procedures in the ICC, their origins and the assumptions behind them as they served in their original legal systems, leads to the question whether the trial procedures of the Court can be seen as one harmonized complex.Keywords: adversarial legal system; inquisitorial legal system; inter-state criminal proceedings; International Criminal Court (ICC); international tribunals