Hungary to ditch ‘discredited’ ICC over Israel arrest warrants

Hungary will not participate in the future operations of the International Criminal Court (ICC), a body “which has been degraded into a political tool and has lost its prestige,” Péter Szijjártó, the minister of foreign affairs and trade, told MPs on Tuesday.

In his introduction to a bill on terminating Hungary’s ICC membership, Szijjártó noted that Hungary signed the ICC’s Rome Statute in 1999, and while the Hungarian parliament confirmed the document in 2001, it was not promulgated into Hungarian law.

Even so, terminating the country’s membership must be approved by parliament, he said. Once that decision is passed, a written notification will be sent to the Secretary-General of the United Nations. The decision to quit will become effective a year later, he added.

Hungary in general opposes “politicising the operation of international organisations”, the minister said, adding that the practice “has been seen on a number of occasions…” “It is clear that if there is a conflict between nations or countries everybody tries to politicise international organisations so that they can be used for their own political purposes,” Szijjártó said.

“We have always rejected that. International organisations are never set up for some political purpose, or out of political interest, but to provide appropriate international platforms and opportunities for dialogue in a given area, even to parties engaged in a conflict,” the minister said. That, he added, was especially true of UN institutions, which, contrary to the European Union or NATO, were set up to ensure dialogue between adversaries.