Culture Society, Identity and Belonging
Hungary withdrew from the International Criminal Court on Thursday, shortly after Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu landed in the country.
Weeks after the former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte was arrested under an ICC warrant, the court is back to having its authority undermined.
The ICC issued an arrest warrant for the Israeli prime minister late last year, meaning Hungary should have detained him on arrival.
Instead, Hungary said viszlát to the body of which it was a founding member.
Tamás Hoffmann from Hungary’s Institute for Legal Studies told Tortoise that Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s aim is to align with the US, Russia and Israel, none of which are ICC members.
The danger is that the move further hurts the country’s standing in the EU, where billions of euros earmarked for Budapest remain frozen.
Orbán may not be too worried. Germany has said it would seek ways to avoid arresting Netanyahu if he visited and France says he has immunity because Israel is not a member of the ICC.
