The ICC Statute was signed by the Republic of Hungary on November 15, 1999. Parliamentary Resolution No. 72/2001 (XI. 7.) provided for the ratification of the Statute. Based on this resolution, the instrument of ratification was deposited on November 30, 2001. According to Government Resolution No. 2201/2003 (IX. 4.), a Hungarian government delegation may participate in the annual meetings of the Assembly of States Parties.

Act XXXI of 2006 promulgated the Agreement on the Privileges and Immunities of the International Criminal Court, however, the text of the ICC Statute has not been promulgated. It would have been promulgated by bill T/4490, which, nevertheless, did not include the necessary amendments to substantive criminal law, criminal procedure, and public law that would have been required for implementation. These latter amendments—especially regarding immunities—were contained in a separate bill, numbered T/4491.

In September 2003, the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Parliament recommended both bills be submitted for general debate. Bill number T/4490, including the full text of the Statute and its Hungarian translation and was unanimously recommended for general debate by the Committee without questions or objections. I participated as an external expert in the drafting of these bills. Even at that time, the Deputy Head of Department of the Ministry of Justice, Dr. Rita Silek, drew the Committee’s attention to the fact that the promulgation of the ICC Statute was more than timely. (I also proofread the Hungarian translation of the ICC Statute.) Subsequently, the proposal remained on the agenda for several years until it was removed from the legislative agenda on May 18, 2006. (Adány, Tamás Vince, PhD Dissertation, 2014)

In 2005, I co-authored an article with my distinguished colleague, Prof. Norbert Kis about the necessity of an International Criminal Code for Hungary and we drafted a suggested text (A nemzetközi bűncselekmények hazai kodifikációja de lege ferenda, Wiener A. Imre ünnepi kötet, pp. 363–392) The draft International Criminal Code has been published in its entirety in English as an Annex to my monograph Nemzetközi büntetőjog Magyarországon, adalékok egy vitához: egyes jellemzők leírása és diagnózis kísérlet, Tullius Publisher, pp. 253–274 (2009), which is available here: https://gellerui.hu/hu/dr-gellér-balázs-2009-nemzetközi-büntetőjog-könyv  The draft Code was circulated in 2003 amongst Ministries with the intent to bring it before Parliament as a bill. This failed as well, nevertheless, fortunately most of it was later adopted in the new Criminal Code of Hungary. The promulgation of the ICC Statute was unfortunately not put on the legislative agenda again.

The Hungarian Government has now decided to withdraw from the ICC. The Minister heading the Prime Minister’s Office, Dr. Gergely Gulyás, announced on last Thursday to the Hungarian News Agency (MTI). He added that while the ICC “was a respectable initiative,” in recent times it has become apparent—most notably in the indictment brought against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—that the Court has turned into a political body. The Minister emphasized that the government finds this unacceptable and has therefore decided not to participate in the work of the ICC. Government Resolution 1090/2025 (IV. 3.) states that the Government agrees that Hungary shall withdraw from the Statute of the ICC. The Government calls upon the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade to make the necessary legal declarations.

Hungary's position is that the ICC does not have jurisdiction to adjudicate events that occurred in Palestinian territories because Hungary does not recognize the Palestinian Authority as a state, as it was established under the Oslo Peace Process. The Hungarian Government argues that the Palestinian Authority does not exercise real sovereignty over Gaza, and therefore, the events that occurred there should not be within the scope of the International Criminal Court’s jurisdiction. According to Hungary's stance, the ICC can only act if crimes are committed on the territory of a member state or if the United Nations Security Council refers the case to the Court. Since Israel is not a member of the Court, and the UN Security Council has never made such a decision, Hungary believes that the Court is not authorized to intervene in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Additionally, Hungary views the ICC not as an independent and impartial judicial body, but as a political institution. Further, the ICC has jurisdiction only if national courts are unable or unwilling to act, which is not the case regarding Israel.

It is self-evident that international institutions are affected by international politics to a greater or lesser extent. This characterizes every international body—even tribunals. While most people wish that international judicial bodies would work solely based on legal norms, the reality is that even these institutions are subject to various extra-legal influences, which will hopefully dwindle over time. If one, however, rejects these institutions—in this case, the ICC—their legitimacy is chipped away, endangering their very existence and jeopardizing 80 years of hard work and legal evolution.

States have the right not to enforce arrest warrants if these are violating one of the basic, although now contested, notions of international law—that is, the immunity of acting heads of state, prime ministers, and foreign ministers. I doubt whether this right has been conferred onto the EU; thus, the refusal to arrest Benjamin Netanyahu is a sovereign decision of every EU Member State. Not so the withdrawal from the ICC, which might be construed as contrary to EU requirements. But even if it is not, such withdrawal is not necessary just because a State—in this case, Hungary—disagrees with an arrest warrant.