Eurasia Press & News
After Hungary’s exit from the ICC, Europe’s political leaders should ensure that Russia does not take advantage of this move to destabilise the rules-based international order.
Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s announcement that Hungary would leave the International Criminal Court, the international body set up after World War II to prosecute war crimes, was seen as a gift to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who made a four-day official visit to Hungary in April despite being subject to an ICC arrest warrant.
Yet Orban’s rhetoric about defending Netanyahu and Israel was merely a pretext; rather, he was sending a clear message to Russians who have similar international arrest warrants or sanctions hanging over them.
Europe’s political leaders should ensure that Russia does not take advantage of this move to destabilise the rules-based international order.
A spoke in the wheels of justice
Orban has cultivated close ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin since returning to power in 2010. As Putin has adopted a more aggressive stance toward the EU, especially after European countries supported Ukraine after Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion, the Hungarian prime minister has worked to mitigate Putin’s international isolation. Russia has expanded the number of military attaches stationed in Hungary, even as its neighbours in Central Europe reduced Russia’s diplomatic footprint in the region. According to a 2024 investigative report published by VSquare, at least five of these diplomatic officers in Hungary work for Russian military intelligence.
Orban’s recent announcement also helps Putin to undermine the ICC, which is trying to hold Russia accountable for war crimes committed during its war against Ukraine. In addition to Putin, the ICC is seeking to arrest four Russian military officers as well as the Russian commissioner for children’s rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, for the unlawful deportation and transfer of children from occupied Ukraine.
Political scientist Balint Magyar, who studies Hungarian-Russian relations under Orban, told me that the decision to leave the ICC becomes clearer if we see it in this broader geopolitical context. “I think it’s a gesture towards Russia, as well,” he said in an interview.
It’s naïve to think that Hungary’s ICC exit is a declaration of independence from all international bodies. Magyar, for example, points out that Orban’s importance to Russia means he must fulfil his role as a part of Europe. “For Russia and for Putin, [Orban] only has value if he is inside the EU,” Magyar explained, which includes having the right to vote on foreign policy issues involving Ukraine.
In fact, Magyar emphasised, this is where Orban says he belongs, referencing comments the prime minister made about his disruptive foreign policy being “a sliver under the fingernail, a spoke in the wheels”.
While Orban is doing Putin’s dirty work in Europe, he is also looking out for his own interests. With domestic polls moving decidedly against his Fidesz party, Orban could find himself in legal jeopardy if he loses the general election next year. “The ruling political elite in Hungary is a criminal organisation according to the existing criminal code in Hungary,” Magyar noted.
Of course, the ICC would have no jurisdiction over the economic corruption and systematic destruction of rule of law that has taken place in Hungary under Orban’s rule, but Magyar said he needs to cover all eventualities: “Orban wants to avoid any possibility of accountability by any authorities.”
Evading justice
Across the border in Ukraine, Hungary’s ICC stance has struck a painful chord for those working there to document the war crimes committed by Russian troops. That pain will linger because the process of bringing the accused to justice is only beginning, said international law expert Mikhail Savva, who once worked with Memorial List, a Russian human rights organisation that shared the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2022, but has since been forced into exile for his opposition activities.
While the ICC was investigating Putin and Lvova-Belova, Savva explained in an email from his home in exile in Kyiv that the Ukrainians were doing their own work in this regard. “According to the Chief Prosecutor of Ukraine,” he wrote, “Ukrainian courts have sentenced 153 Russian war criminals.”
Still, tens of thousands of reported war crimes have yet to be investigated. “The process of punishing the guilty will be long, and all these years Ukrainians will remember Hungary’s demonstrative step in support of war criminals,” he warned.
It’s unlikely that Orban will make the corresponding move to invite Putin to Budapest as he did with Netanyahu. Putin is such a global pariah that hosting him in Budapest could well spark the kind of decisive action that the prime minister wants to avoid. But Orban is a shrewd gadfly, and surely knows that inviting a lesser figure like Lvova-Belova would cause a stir without necessarily running the risk of real punishment.
It will take a year for Hungary to withdraw from the ICC, based on the procedures stipulated in the Rome Statute that created the court. In the meantime, according to Savva, Europe should strengthen the ICC by resisting actions by the Trump administration against the ICC. On February 6, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order declaring that ICC arrest warrants are “illegitimate”, while promising to “impose tangible and significant consequences on those responsible”, which would include ICC officials and employees as well as their immediate family members.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s political leadership has committed itself to upholding the ICC, which should inspire its European allies to reaffirm their commitment to international law.
In January, the ICC announced that the Rome Statute had gone into effect in Ukraine, making it the 20th European member of the court and the 125th overall. Over the coming years, Ukraine will continue to adapt its national legal system to integrate the Rome Statute’s norms.
But, according to Savva, this will only be a worthwhile effort if Europe also takes steps to defend the ICC: “Europe must consistently and stubbornly resist attempts to destroy the ICC. This is a confrontation over values, and Europe is on the right side of it.”
