Hungary said it was withdrawing from the International Criminal Court (ICC), the government announced on Thursday. The declaration followed just after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has an ICC arrest warrant against him, arrived in Budapest on a state visit.
Right-wing Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban had invited Netanyahu in November, a day after the ICC issued an arrest warrant against him for alleged war crimes in Gaza. Israel, which had launched a military offensive after the October 7, 2023, Hamas assault on southern Israel, has discredited the allegations. It asserts that the ICC ruling is politically driven and antisemitic, saying that the court has lost credibility by going after a democratically elected official who was acting in self-defense.
Hungary, as a founding member of the ICC, is theoretically obligated to arrest individuals targeted by the court’s warrants. But Orban rejected the ruling, terming it “brazen, cynical and totally unacceptable.” Hungary had joined the ICC’s founding treaty in 1999 and ratified it in 2001, but its legislation never included the treaty. Orban’s chief of staff, Gergely Gulyas, explained in November that because the Rome Statute “was never incorporated into Hungarian law,” the court’s actions cannot be applied within Hungary.
On Thursday, Gulyas said the government would officially initiate the withdrawal process later in the day. Orban had already signaled this step after former U.S. President Donald Trump sanctioned ICC prosecutor Karim Khan in February. “It’s time for Hungary to rethink what we’re doing in an international organization that is under U.S. sanctions,” Orban said on X in February.
Hungary’s legislature, controlled by Orban’s Fidesz party, is poised to pass the bill launching the one-year withdrawal process. Orban has been a vocal supporter of Netanyahu, having formerly vetoed EU remarks and action against Israel.
The ICC issued the warrants for Netanyahu and his former defense minister based on “reasonable grounds” to believe that they were criminally liable for war crimes like murder, persecution, and starvation as a war tactic during Israel’s Gaza assault. The offensive has left more than 50,000 Palestinians dead and caused wide-scale devastation, Palestinian health officials said. As it happened, Hamas-led Israel on October 7, 2023, saw 1,200 people slain and more than 250 abducted, according to Israeli counts.
Apart from Netanyahu’s warrant, the ICC also issued another arrest warrant of a Hamas chief in November. His death later came after a warrant had already been issued for him.
