The Hungarian government has decided to withdraw from the International Criminal Court (ICC), it was announced shortly after Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu, wanted on an ICC warrant, arrived for a state visit to the country.
Right-wing Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban invited his Israeli counterpart to Budapest in November, a day after the ICC issued an arrest warrant for him on charges of war crimes in Gaza, where Israel launched its offensive following an attack by Hamas-led fighters in southern Israel.
Israel has rejected the charges, claiming they are politically motivated and fueled by antisemitism. It states that the ICC has lost all legitimacy by issuing a warrant against a democratically elected leader who exercised the right to self-defense.
As a founding member of the ICC, Hungary is theoretically obligated to arrest and extradite anyone against whom a court warrant has been issued. Orban, however, has made it clear that Hungary will not comply with the ruling, which he called brazen, cynical, and completely unacceptable.
Hungary signed the ICC’s founding document in 1999 and ratified it in 2001, but the law was never enacted. Gergely Gulyas, Orban’s chief of staff, said in November that although Hungary had ratified the Rome Statute of the ICC, it never became part of Hungarian law, meaning no court measure can be enforced within Hungary.
On Thursday, Gulyas said that the government would initiate the withdrawal process during the day. Orban raised the prospect of Hungary’s exit from the ICC after the United States (U.S.) President Donald Trump imposed sanctions on the court’s prosecutor, Karim Khan, in February.
“It is time for Hungary to reconsider what it is doing in an international organization that is under U.S. sanctions,” Orban stated on platform X in February.
The bill to initiate the one-year withdrawal process from the ICC is likely to be approved by the Hungarian parliament, which is dominated by Orban’s Fidesz party.
