Orban Says Hungary is Quitting the ICC to End its 'Half-hearted' Membership

A handout photo made available by the Hungarian Prime Minister's Press Office shows Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban speaking during a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu following their meeting in the government headquarters in Budapest, Hungary, 03 April 2025. EPA/ZOLTAN FISCHER

Hungary was never fully committed to the International Criminal Court, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said on Friday, a day after his government announced a decision to quit the global tribunal for war crimes and genocide.
Speaking on state radio, Orban offered justification for why Hungary did not detain Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday when Israel's prime minister arrived in Budapest for a state visit despite an ICC arrest warrant, The Associated Press reported.
“Hungary has always been half-hearted” in its ICC membership, said Orban, who on Thursday said the ICC was “no longer an impartial court, not a court of law, but a political court.” Hungary joined the ICC during Orban’s first term as prime minister in 2001.
“We signed an international treaty, but we never took all the steps that would otherwise have made it enforceable in Hungary,” Orban said, referring to the fact that Hungary’s parliament never promulgated the court’s statute into Hungarian law.
The court, based in The Hague, Netherlands, issued a warrant for Netanyahu's arrest in November on suspicion of crimes against humanity for his conduct of Israel's war in the Gaza Strip. Signatories to the ICC, such as Hungary, are required to arrest any suspects facing a warrant if they set foot on their soil.
The ICC and other international organizations have criticized Hungary's defiance of the warrant against Netanyahu. Days before the Israeli leader received a red carpet welcome with full military honors in Hungary's capital, the president of the court’s oversight body wrote to the government in Hungary reminding it of its “specific obligation to comply with requests from the court for arrest and surrender.”
Judges at the ICC have in the past dismissed similar arguments that failure to promulgate the court's statute exempts countries from complying with its rulings.
Hungary's decision to leave the ICC, a process that will take at least a year to complete, will make it the only country in the 27-member European Union that is not a signatory to the court. With 125 current signatory countries, only the Philippines and Burundi have ever withdrawn from the court as Hungary intends.