Hungary has decided to withdraw from the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Hungarian Prime Minister Gergely Gulyas announced this fact on Thursday during the visit of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Budapest.
This was accepted by Hungary despite an ICC arrest warrant issued against it in connection with the war in Gaza. “The government will start the withdrawal process on Thursday in accordance with the constitutional and international legal framework,” Gulyas said.
As a founding member of the ICC, Hungary is theoretically obliged to arrest and extradite anyone subject to an order from the court, but Orban made it clear that Hungary would 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 has not been promulgated. Israel has rejected the charges, which it says are politically motivated and fueled by anti-Semitism. It says the International Criminal Court has lost all legitimacy by issuing warrants against a democratically elected leader of a country exercising its right to self-defense.
Gergely Gulyas, Orbán's chief of staff, said in November that although Hungary ratified the ICC's Rome Statute, it "never became part of Hungarian law," meaning that no measures of the court can be implemented within Hungary.
Orban had raised the prospect of Hungary's exit from the ICC after US President Donald Trump imposed sanctions on the court's prosecutor Karim Khan in February.
“It is time for Hungary to review what we are doing in an international organization that is under US sanctions,” Orban said at X in February.
The bill to begin the year-long process of withdrawing from the ICC is likely to be approved by Hungary's parliament, which is dominated by Orban's Fidesz party. (A2 Televizion)
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