Hungary’s government has announced its withdrawal from the International Criminal Court (ICC) just before Prime Minister Viktor Orban welcomed his Israeli counterpart, Benjamin Netanyahu, who faces an ICC arrest warrant.
“Hungary exits the International Criminal Court. The government will initiate the withdrawal procedure on Thursday, in accordance with the constitutional and international legal framework,” Orban’s chief of staff, Gergely Gulyas, posted on Facebook on Thursday.
Orban had previously suggested Hungary might leave the ICC after United States President Donald Trump imposed sanctions on the court’s prosecutor, Karim Khan, in February. “It’s time for Hungary to review what we’re doing in an international organisation that is under US sanctions,” Orban stated on X at that time.
The withdrawal legislation is expected to pass easily through Hungary’s parliament, which is controlled by Orban’s Fidesz party. The ICC has not yet responded to Hungary’s announcement.
A country’s withdrawal from the court takes effect one year after formally notifying the United Nations secretary-general’s office. To date, only Burundi and the Philippines have withdrawn from the court.
Netanyahu arrived in Budapest early Thursday morning on his first European visit since 2023, despite the ICC’s arrest warrant against him for alleged war crimes in Gaza.
Israel has firmly rejected the court’s accusations, claiming they are politically motivated and influenced by anti-Semitism. Israel maintains the ICC has lost legitimacy by issuing warrants against a democratically elected leader of a country exercising its right to self-defense.
Orban extended his invitation to Netanyahu last November, just one day after the ICC issued the arrest warrant. He stated that Hungary would not execute the warrant despite being an ICC member, arguing that the court’s decision “intervenes in an ongoing conflict… for political purposes.”
The Hague-based court criticized Hungary’s refusal to honor its warrant for Netanyahu. When issuing the warrant, ICC judges stated there were reasonable grounds to believe Netanyahu and his former defense chief were criminally responsible for acts including murder, persecution and using starvation as a weapon of war as part of a “widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population of Gaza.”
However, ICC spokesperson Fadi El Abdallah emphasized that it is not for member states “to unilaterally determine the soundness of the Court’s legal decisions.”
Hungary signed the Rome Statute that established the ICC in 1999 and ratified it two years later during Orban’s first term as prime minister.
Gulyas, Orban’s aide, claimed in November that although Hungary ratified the Rome Statute of the ICC, it “was never made part of Hungarian law,” suggesting that no measures from the court can be enforced within Hungary.
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