In a vote confirmed by the foreign minister, the Hungarian legislature approved Budapest’s withdrawal from the International Criminal Court (ICC), moving toward the full exit Hungary announced after refusing to follow an ICC arrest warrant when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited in early April.
Hungary’s Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó confirmed that the sometimes-rogue EU and NATO member’s ICC exit on Tuesday, April 29.
“With this decision, we refuse to be part of a politicized institution that has lost its impartiality and credibility,” he stated.
Despite the withdrawal, officials in The Hague emphasized that Hungary remains bound by its obligations under the Rome Statute for the period it was a party to it.
Hungary signed the Statute in 1999 and ratified it in 2001.
Earlier in April, Netanyahu visited Hungary despite an active ICC arrest warrant against him. Hungarian authorities ignored the warrant and did not detain him.
That same day, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán announced his country would leave the ICC, accusing the court of losing its impartiality. He also signed a government decree initiating the formal withdrawal process.
In March 2023, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin over the forced deportation of children from Russian-occupied territories in Ukraine.
Putin “is allegedly responsible for the war crime of unlawful deportation of population (children) and that of unlawful transfer of population (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.”
The ICC said the crimes dated from Feb. 24, 2022, when Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
“There are reasonable grounds to believe that Mr. Putin bears individual criminal responsibility for the aforementioned crimes,” the court said.
At the time, Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said the decision had “no meaning for our country, including from a legal point of view.”
“Russia is not a party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and bears no obligations under it.”
Nevertheless, in September 2024, Mongolia hosted Putin for an official visit. Authorities there cited the country’s heavy dependence on Russian energy and limited geopolitical options as reasons for not enforcing the warrant.
Ukraine reacted to the trip with fury, accusing Mongolia, another signatory of the ICC Rome Statute, of “sharing responsibility” for Putin’s “war crimes” after authorities did not detain him at the airport.