Hungary has decided to withdraw from the International Criminal Court (ICC), the government announced on Thursday, shortly after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived in the country for a state visit.
“The government will initiate the withdrawal procedure on Thursday, in accordance with the constitutional and international legal framework,” said Gergely Gulyas, the head of the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s cabinet.
The ICC has faced growing controversy in recent years, particularly due to the arrest warrants issued against Russian President Vladimir Putin and Netanyahu.
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu arrived in the Hungarian capital, Budapest, on Wednesday, despite an ICC arrest warrant against him for his conduct in the Gaza Strip.
Gulyas criticized the ICC for allegedly deviating from its original purpose and becoming a “political body,” referring to the arrest warrant against Netanyahu.
He argued that since Hungary never incorporated the Rome Statute of the ICC from 1998 into its domestic law, the court’s arrest warrants cannot be executed in the country.
Gulyas also referenced the fact that the world’s major military powers have never been members of the ICC, and that the United States has imposed sanctions on the organization.
He also noted Poland, where Prime Minister Donald Tusk said in January that Netanyahu would not be arrested if he visited an Auschwitz commemoration event, despite the ICC arrest warrant against him.
The ICC’s arrest warrant, issued in November, stated that there were grounds to believe Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant used “starvation as a method of warfare” by restricting humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip and deliberately targeting civilians in Israel’s campaign against Hamas – allegations that Israeli officials deny.
In response to the warrant, Orban invited Netanyahu for a state visit and accused the ICC of “intervening in an ongoing conflict for political purposes,” stating that the measure undermines international law and escalates tensions.
Hungary would be the third country to withdraw from the Rome Statute, after Burundi and the Philippines. Burundi was the first to leave the ICC in 2017. South Africa and Gambia have threatened to withdraw as well, but have since reversed or suspended their decisions. All three countries claim that the court is biased against African nations.
The Philippines withdrew from the court in 2019, but its former president, Rodrigo Duterte, is under arrest and currently facing charges of murder stemming from his infamous “war on drugs.”
