  We investigate the prospects for detecting and measuring the parameters of
WIMP dark matter in a model independent way at the International Linear
Collider. The signal under study is direct WIMP pair production with associated
initial state radiation $e^+e^- \rightarrow \chi\chi\gamma$. The analysis
accounts for the beam energy spectrum of the ILC and the dominant machine
induced backgrounds. The influence of the detector parameters are incorporated
by full simulation and event reconstruction within the framework of the ILD
detector concept. We show that by using polarised beams, the detection
potential is significantly increased by reduction of the dominant SM background
of radiative neutrino production $e^+e^- \rightarrow \nu\nu\gamma$. The
dominant sources of systematic uncertainty are the precision of the
polarisation measurement and the shape of the beam energy spectrum. With an
integrated luminosity of 500 fb the helicity structure of the interaction
involved can be inferred, and the masses and cross-sections can be measured
with a relative accuracy of the order of 1 %.
