The Hungarian government decided to withdraw from the International Criminal Court, it announced on Thursday, shortly after Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu, wanted under an ICC arrest warrant, arrived in the country on a state visit, writes Reuters.
Meanwhile, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban invited Netanyahu to Budapest back in November, the day after the ICC issued an arrest warrant for him in connection with allegations of war crimes in Gaza. ICC judges stated that there are sufficient grounds to believe that Netanyahu and his former defense chief bear criminal responsibility for acts such as murder, persecution, and starvation as a weapon of war within the framework of a "widespread and systematic attack on the civilian population of Gaza".
Israel rejected the accusations, which it considers politically motivated. It claims that the International Criminal Court has lost all legitimacy by issuing arrest warrants for the democratically elected leader of a country exercising its right to self-defense. As a result of the attack on Israel led by Hamas on October 7, 2023, 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 were taken hostage. Following this, Israeli forces launched an operation in Gaza.
As a founding member of the ICC, Hungary is theoretically obliged to arrest and hand over anyone with a court warrant, but Orban immediately made it clear that Hungary would not comply with the decision, which he called "brazen, cynical, and completely unacceptable".
Hungary signed the founding document of the ICC in 1999 and ratified it in 2001, but the law was never adopted. Orban's chief of staff, Gergely Gulyas, stated in November that although Hungary ratified the Rome Statute of the ICC, it "never became part of Hungarian legislation," meaning that no court measures can be taken on Hungarian territory.
Orban first raised the issue of Hungary's withdrawal from the ICC after US President Donald Trump imposed sanctions on the court's prosecutor Karim Khan in February. "It's time for Hungary to reconsider what we are doing in an international organization under US sanctions," Orban stated on the social network X in February.
The country's government will begin the withdrawal procedure on April 3, and a proposal for withdrawal will be submitted to the National Assembly. If the majority supports it, the Cabinet will officially initiate the withdrawal, but the process may take several months to a year.
Hungary is not the first country to not comply with ICC decisions. In September last year, Mongolia did not arrest Vladimir Putin, for whom an arrest warrant was issued by the International Court in connection with the war in Ukraine.