Hungary will withdraw from ICC
- The Washington Post
- Apr 3
- 4 min read
The Washington Post
April 3, 2025
By Kate Brady and Adam Taylor
Hungary announced plans Thursday to withdraw from the International Criminal Court, hours after Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu — who is sought under an ICC arrest warrant that accuses him of crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza — arrived there for a state visit.
Prime Minister Viktor Orban, a right-wing leader who has promoted a style of government he calls “illiberal democracy,” has long had warm ties with Netanyahu. A day after the ICC issued the warrant in November, Orban invited Netanyahu to Budapest, promising that Hungary would not enforce the warrant.
The ICC, based in The Hague in the Netherlands, is a court of last resort to prosecute people for crimes under international law, including genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, when other courts are not able to. Though the ICC itself has no means of arresting someone, the warrant requires the 125 countries that are party to the Rome Statute to carry out arrests if possible.
Israel is not party to the Rome Statute that founded the ICC, but the Palestinian territories joined the ICC in 2015, which the court asserts gives it jurisdiction over any crimes committed there, including in Gaza.
Speaking Thursday during a joint news conference with Netanyahu in Budapest, Orban said Hungary would leave the ICC because “we are convinced that this has become a political court.”
“I’d like to confirm that Israel can count on Hungary in the future as the impenetrable European bastion of the Judeo-Christian culture,” he said, while Netanyahu thanked Orban for his “bold and principled” decision to withdraw from the court, saying that he had done “remarkable things for Israel and the Jewish people.”
Orban has been repeatedly accused of using hateful antisemitic tropes, particularly during election campaigning. In 2022, he faced backlash after giving a speech in which he argued that Europeans should not “become peoples of mixed race” and appeared to joke about Nazi gas chambers.
Netanyahu’s visit to the Hungarian capital Thursday was the Israeli leader’s second foreign trip since the ICC issued the warrant against him last year. In February, Netanyahu met with President Donald Trump in Washington.
When issuing the arrest warrants against Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant last year, the ICC said there was reason to believe that the two used “starvation as a method of warfare” by restricting humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, and intentionally targeted civilians in Israel’s campaign against Hamas.
Israeli officials denied the charges as “false and absurd.” The ICC also issued a warrant for a Hamas military leader, Mohammed Deif, who Israel says was killed in an airstrike in Gaza in July.
Israel launched the war in Gaza in response to Hamas attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, that killed about 1,200 people and took roughly 250 hostage. Since then, more than 50,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s military campaign, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but says the majority of the dead are women and children.
Hungary signed the Rome Statute in 1999 and ratified it in 2001, both during Orban’s first term as prime minister. However, Orban, who returned to the premiership in 2010, indicated last year he would not honor an arrest warrant for Netanyahu, telling state radio last year that the court was “interfering in an ongoing conflict for political purposes.”
Formally withdrawing from the ICC takes at least a year, according to the Rome Statute. Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp told reporters Thursday that Hungary was still required to “meet the obligations” of being part of the ICC until then, adding: “We are living now in a world full of turmoil, war and uncertainty, in which international institutions are not always appreciated by every government.”
Liz Evenson, international justice director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement earlier this week that “allowing Netanyahu’s visit in breach of Hungary’s ICC obligations would be Orban’s latest assault on the rule of law, adding to the country’s dismal record on rights.”
Orban’s decision to withdraw from the Rome Statute could, once again, put him at odds with other members of the European Union. All 27 members of the bloc, including Hungary, are signatories to the Rome Statute. However, numerous governments, including France and Germany, have indicated they would not arrest Netanyahu if he entered their country.
Exiting the ICC would align Hungary with the United States, which never officially joined the court. The Clinton administration signed the Rome Statute in 2000, but did not submit it for Senate ratification. Former President George W. Bush, then withdrew the U.S. signature in 2002, the year the ICC was founded.
In an executive order issued on Feb. 7, President Donald Trump said he would impose sanctions on the court for its investigations into Israel’s conduct of the war in Gaza, suggesting it had “engaged in illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America and our close ally Israel.”
Only two countries have previously withdrawn from the ICC: Burundi in 2017 and the Philippines in 2019.
Copyright 2025 The Washington Post
