Hungary withdraws from the International Criminal Court after hosting Netanyahu

BarcelonaThe Hungarian government announced Thursday that it is withdrawing from the International Criminal Court (ICC), the body that tries those responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The reason is the support of far-right leader Viktor Orbán's administration for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom it has welcomed despite his opposition. the international arrest warrant for his actions in Gaza. Netanyahu arrived in Budapest last night at the invitation of Orbán, who defied the order, which is binding on all member states.

Hungary was one of the founding members of the ICC in 1999, to which all 27 European Union members also belong. After inviting Netanyahu in November, in an open defiance of the court when the judges agreed to grant the Prosecutor's request for his arrest, the Hungarian government had already hinted at the possibility of withdrawing from the Court. In 2001, Budapest ratified its membership, although it failed to transpose it into its constitutional order. Orbán's decision is in line with US President Donald Trump, who imposed sanctions in February against the court's prosecutor, Karim Khan, who proposed Netanyahu's arrest. However, the United States is not a member of the Court in order to maintain impunity for its soldiers and political and military leaders in their foreign interventions.

The ICC judges argue in the arrest warrant that there are grounds to believe Netanyahu and his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, are responsible for crimes including murder, persecution, and the use of starvation as a weapon of war in a "systematic attack against the civilian population of Gaza." The court also issued an arrest warrant for the Hamas leader who was killed in the current Israeli offensive.

Netanyahu's visit to Hungary is expected to extend until Sunday, and he is due to meet with Orbán this Thursday. This is not the first time Netanyahu has traveled abroad since the international arrest warrant was issued. In February, he visited the White House at the invitation of Donald Trump, who gave him the green light to break the truce in Gaza and return to indiscriminate bombing, as he did on March 18. France also breached its obligation when it authorized the passage of Netanyahu's plane to the United States through its airspace. Other countries such as the Czech Republic, Romania, and Argentina, also signatories to the Rome Statute, have also announced that they will not enforce the order if Netanyahu travels to their territory. The future German chancellor, Friedrich Mertz, said last month that he would look for ways for Netanyahu to travel to his country. ICC spokesman Fadi El Abdallah recalled that it is not up to states to "unilaterally determine the validity of the Court's legal decisions" and that they have an obligation to implement them.

A provocation

Orbán opened the game with an explicit challenge: he invited Netanyahu shortly after the international arrest warrant was issued, which he called "cynical." The decision also impacts the rest of the European Union member states. The visit also coincides with the ground offensive on Gaza announced this morning by the Israeli Defense Minister.and has already accumulated dozens of deaths in bombings and mass evacuation orders throughout the Strip.

When contacted by ARA, Claudia Jiménez, a professor of international law at the Autonomous University, emphasized that the case "is further proof of the lack of independence of the judiciary in Hungary" because "it is the judge who must decide whether to enforce the arrest warrant, and the government cannot interfere." "EU countries are demonstrating the lack of separation of powers and that it is the political power that controls the judiciary," she warns. A few years ago, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva had to retract his invitation to Vladimir Putin, who also has an arrest warrant for the invasion of Ukraine, and assure him that he would not be arrested, after the judges made it clear that this was not within their jurisdiction.