Why is Hungary leaving the International Criminal Court?

One thing the Hungarian prime minister cannot be accused of is appearing unmotivated or indecisive. In his political tactics, the passionate football fan Viktor Orban relies mostly on attack rather than defense. And when the headlines about him in the media are particularly negative, he sometimes deliberately adds fuel to the fire.

He did so even before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to Budapest on April 3, 2025, even began. Orbán's chief of staff, Gergely Gulyas, announced on Thursday morning via the state-run MTI news agency that Hungary was leaving the International Criminal Court (ICC). The government has initiated the appropriate procedure, and the withdrawal will be implemented in accordance with all deadlines. Shortly afterwards, the official Hungarian Gazette published the government's decision.

Exit from the ICC considered as early as February

Gulyas added, as a precaution, that Hungary is in a special legal situation. It has acceded to the ICC, but because the Hungarian parliament has never voted on its statute, Budapest is not obliged to execute arrest warrants. To clear up the legal contradiction, Hungary is now withdrawing from the ICC.

Although the move drew international attention, it was hardly a surprise. When the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for the Israeli prime minister on November 21, 2024, Viktor Orban fully sided with Netanyahu within hours. The arrest warrant was “arrogant, cynical and completely unacceptable,” Orban wrote on the social media platform X, inviting his friend to Hungary, “where we will guarantee his freedom and safety.”

Shortly thereafter, in February 2025, Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó announced that his country was considering withdrawing from the ICC. Such statements are usually a signal in Orbán's Hungary that the decision has already been made.

The withdrawal from the ICC will only happen in a year

Independent Hungarian media and observers commented on the move with a mixture of shock and sarcasm. The weekly HVG (Heti Vilaggazdasag), for example, headlined an article: “Why do we need the International Criminal Court? No one can order us who to prosecute and who not to prosecute!” The portal 444.hu writes: “Netanyahu should have been arrested at the airport, but we prefer to leave the ICC.”

Tamás Hofman, an international law expert from Corvin University in Budapest, told the daily Blik that by leaving the ICC, "the Hungarian government is sending a message that the fight against international crimes and the protection of human rights are not its priorities."

Legally, Hungary was obliged to arrest Netanyahu, regardless of its planned withdrawal from the ICC. Because withdrawal from the Court only becomes official after a year, starting from the date of the written declaration of withdrawal from the ICC, which must be sent to the Secretary-General of the United Nations.

Leaving the ICC is more than a gift to Netanyahu

Nevertheless, Viktor Orban and Benjamin Netanyahu enthusiastically celebrated Hungary’s withdrawal from the ICC at a joint press conference on Thursday. Orban called the ICC a “political court,” while Netanyahu applauded the words and added that the court was “corrupt” and a threat to democracy. Questions from reporters were not allowed.

However, the fact that Hungary announced its withdrawal from the ICC on the very day of Netanyahu’s visit is much more than Orbán’s gift to his friend Netanyahu. This year, the Hungarian prime minister announced a new political offensive: it is about “fighting the Brussels empire”, about transforming the EU into an alliance of sovereign states held together only by economic interests, and about fighting all of Orbán’s critics. In a speech on the occasion of the national holiday, March 15, the Hungarian prime minister called his opponents “beetles that survived the winter” and who will now be “liquidated”.

With Donald Trump coming to power, Orbán believes the current situation is particularly favorable for such a political offensive. In addition to the American president, he is also counting on his allies from the Patriots for Europe party alliance, which is now the third-strongest faction in the European Parliament.

In this sense, the withdrawal from the ICC can also be interpreted as a kind of test of whether and how a transnational institution can be attacked and possibly destroyed. The withdrawal from the ICC also has to do with Hungary's membership in the European Union. Membership in the ICC is more or less directly linked to EU membership, as the Union considers the ICC to be part of its legal and value system. Hungary is the only EU country to have withdrawn from the ICC. This raises the question of whether Orban is also seeking Hungary's exit from the European Union.

Orban wants a different EU

For now, Orban does not want to leave the EU – but to reshape the Union according to his own ideas. Leaving the EU is not currently politically feasible in Hungary and would likely spell Orban’s political end. Nevertheless, the Hungarian prime minister continues to campaign against the European Union – from right-wing fairy tales about “population replacements” to the “Geyropa” narrative.

Domestically, Orban has launched a wide-ranging campaign against his critics – whom he dismissively calls “bugs” and speaks of a “great Easter purge”. The aim seems to be to consolidate his power to the point where political alternatives are hardly possible. At the same time, dissatisfaction with corruption and authoritarian tendencies in the government system is growing in Hungary. This is evident, among other things, in the fact that the opposition party Tisza (Respect and Freedom), which was founded last year, is far ahead of Orban’s Fidesz party in the polls. Its leader, Péter Magyar, is currently the most popular politician in Hungary.

However, Hungarian publicist Imre Para-Kovač is skeptical when it comes to political change: “Hungary is immune to change,” he writes. The fact that the country will fundamentally change, as some hope, is, according to Para-Kovač, an illusion.