The European country of Hungary has announced its withdrawal from the International Criminal Court (ICC).
The announcement came shortly after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu paid a state visit to the country, defying the ICC’s arrest warrant for genocide in Gaza, Palestine.
According to media reports, the ICC issued an arrest warrant against Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu last November on charges of war crimes in the besieged Gaza Strip. After the warrant was issued, Hungary’s right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orban invited the Israeli Prime Minister to visit Budapest.
Israel began its indiscriminate invasion of Gaza on October 7, 2023. Since then, about 50,000 people have been killed and thousands have been injured in the war. The Gaza Strip has been reduced to rubble by Israel’s indiscriminate attacks.
International organizations have accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza. Israel denies the charges, saying they are politically motivated and motivated by anti-Semitism.
As a founding member of the ICC, Hungary is theoretically obligated to arrest and extradite anyone with a warrant from the court. But Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has said Hungary considers the ICC ruling “brazen, pretentious and completely unacceptable.” He said the country will not respect the ICC ruling.
Hungary signed the ICC founding document in 1999 and ratified it in 2001. However, the law has not been promulgated.
Viktor Orbán’s chief of staff, Zsóry Gulyas, said in November that while Hungary had ratified the ICC’s Rome Statute, it had not been made part of Hungarian law, meaning that any actions taken by the court would not be enforceable in Hungary.
Orbán had previously hinted at Hungary’s possible withdrawal from the ICC in February after US President Donald Trump imposed sanctions on the court’s prosecutor, Karim Khan. In a post on social media at the time, Orbán said that it was time to review what Hungary was doing in an international organization under US sanctions.
The process of withdrawing from the ICC is a lengthy one. A bill to begin the year-long process must be passed by the Hungarian parliament. However, it is expected that the law will be passed because Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party has a majority in the country’s parliament.
The headquarters of the International Criminal Court is located in the Netherlands. The Netherlands says Hungary must fulfill its obligations until the withdrawal is complete. Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp told reporters on the sidelines of a NATO meeting in Brussels that the entire process of withdrawing from the ICC takes about a year. During this time, Hungary must fulfill all of its obligations to the court.
Sources: Reuters, CNN, The Guardian, Washington Post.