ICC reacts to Hungary's withdrawal announcement

Fad el-Abdullah, the spokesman of the International Criminal Court has reacted to the Hungarian government's announcement on Thursday that it would begin the process of withdrawing from the agreement governing the ICC's operation, adopted in New York on 10 September 2002. He also commented on the fact that the announcement was timed to coincide with the Budapest visit of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is subject to an international arrest warrant. Speaking to the BBC, the spokesman, referring to the fact that withdrawal is a year-long process and that legal commitments cannot be terminated overnight, tersely said:

“On the visit of Mr Netanyahu, the Court has followed its standard procedures, after the issuance of an arrest warrant. The Court recalls that Hungary remains under a duty to cooperate with the ICC.”

Reacting to Netanyahu's visit, Annalena Baerbock, the outgoing German government's Green Party Foreign Minister, said it was "a bad day for international criminal law".

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar, on the other hand, joined Benjamin Netanyahu in thanking Hungarian Prime Minister Orbán for "his clear and strong moral stand on Israel's side":

"The so-called 'International Criminal Court' lost its moral authority after trampling the fundamental principles of international law in its zest for harming Israel’s right to self-defense"

Read more about the reasons why the Hungarian government decided to withdraw from the ICC agreement as well as the process of withdrawal and its potential consequences in our previous article.