April 4, 2025 - 7:00am
The all-consuming spectacle of the US administration dismantling the global trading system has resulted in another significant piece of news going under the radar. To coincide with the visit of Benjamin Netanyahu, Hungary has declared its intention to withdraw from the International Criminal Court (ICC), which has a warrant out for the Israeli Prime Minister’s arrest. In many ways, though, this is of a pair with the shock-and-awe announcements Trump made in the White House Rose Garden on Wednesday — a clear sign that we’ve seen the high point of the liberal rules-based international order and that the tide is on its way out.
That Hungary should leave the ICC is hardly surprising, given Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s long-running scepticism over the constraints of international law and the overreach of the organisations driving its expansion. In reality, though, almost every Western country faces the same issue of how to respond to unaccountable and remote bodies which freely impose their political framework without any concession to national interests. Is any European democracy going to dynamite its relationship with a vital strategic ally in the Middle East to placate the whims of a court acting vastly beyond its remit? Hungary’s approach is simply more honest than most.
Will other countries follow suit? Not over this, perhaps: it may be that the current conflict in Gaza is simply too divisive for leaders to have the confidence to take Hungary’s decisive stance. Likewise, there are still some governments — including Britain’s — which have not yet woken up to the reality of the new world order, or which retain a deep emotional attachment to the worldview that institutions like the ICC represent. But it seems certain that even the most fanatical adherents to institutionalist doctrines will make no real effort to enforce the ICC’s diktats. Over time, this will hollow out those same institutions, so that every overreach leads only to the further erosion of any real authority they once possessed.
Leaving aside the US, whose current aggressive reaction to perceived international constraints is rooted in a peculiarly American historical tradition and the neuroses of the Trump administration, this is how support for the postwar institutional system may collapse among other nations. Faced with a seemingly never-ending series of decisions that prioritise quixotic political campaigns and ever more expansive interpretations of their remit, while blithely ignoring vital national interests in this new and lawless world order, even the most committed institutionalists will at some point lose patience.
There may be no sudden crumbling away of the international courts, given that active departures are, for now, likely to be the exception rather than the norm. Yet, in the longer term, those institutions will have to adapt in order to take national concerns seriously. The alternative option is merely to wither away and die.
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SubscribeI think it’s time for Hungary to exit the EU as well.
…. as should every other democracy.
Oh, if the EU is only for countries that aren’t democracies, maybe Hungary should stay, and all the other members should leave.
You may not like it Martin, but Orban is the politician the Hungarians want to lead them. I suspect Farage will become the UK choice, if he can effectively pull his party together. Then what will you do?
I don’t have a problem with Hungarians electing Orban to lead them, I have a problem with Hungary staying in the EU. It is obvious that Hungary has nothing in common with any other nation in the EU. It stays only for the handouts.
Don’t be daft, Orban will never do that. He’ll spend all day berating it while standing there with his hand out expecting them to fund him.
The bloke is a colossal hypocrite
Like him or not, he is probably one of the cleverest of the bunch. He’s currently playing poker with a group of bureaucrats that want to absorb his country and his fellow countrymen. Only time will tell who wins out.
You’re right Martin, but not for the reasons you think you’re right.
My main concern is that Hungary is getting EU money. Orban is a Putin stooge. Let him go to Putin for money.
He never will because he’s a hypocrite.
He’ll berate the EU whilst simultaneously standing there with his hand out expecting it to fund his regime.
I’m no fan of the EU and voted to leave but I find Hungarys (or more specifically Orbans) stance pathetic. If the EU is that bad then give the people a vote on leaving, but he’ll never do that because his snout is buried much too deeply in the trough
How long until the EU Commission demands that its statelets must join the ICC or face defunding of some kind … ?
If anything it strengthens the court. Now it has one less disobedient member who was going to openly defy it.
Excellent. Britain should also act promptly to further strengthen the ICC, and also the ECHR.
not forgetting the UN and the WHO.
… and also don’t forget the Hordes of Sauron and the Klingon Empire.
Yes Chris, the more countries that leave, the stronger they get. Makes sense. If that’s the case I sincerely hope they go from strength to strength.
Agreed, one can imagine that illiberal, despotic decisions in the ICC will become much easier to achieve.
And again I don’t understand the downvotes for a reasonable comment.
The ICC, in common with many other supranational bodies, has been hijacked by a particularly vicious brand of political belief. It’s high time we had a complete overhaul of such organisations.
Oh please, the primary purpose of the ICC has always been to legitimize western interventionism, with some rare attempts at impartiality before the law, maybe once a decade, to keep the charade going.
The courts legitimacy in western eyes is directly related to how closely it holds to american policy, so when the ICC puts out a warrant for Putin then it’s legitimate, but when it put one out for Netanyahu then it isn’t.
During the Iraq war the US Congress actually passed a law that allows the military to storm the Hague should they bring a US soldier before the court for war crimes (which we all know happened, which is why the ICC was considering it), but during the balkan wars the ICC was treated as the ultimate objective arbiter – the hypocrisy knows no bounds.
The conceit that the ICC has global jurisdiction was always laughable, now so more than ever, with power shifting eastward. Hopefully this is the start of the end for the “high tribunal”.
I have a ‘rule of thumb’ that any organisation that has lasted for around 70 years may become ‘captured’ by the concerns of the careerists within it – and these may not be aligned with the organisation’s founding purpose.
It may not be possible to ‘reset’ or ‘reorganise’ the organisation, but even if you can tear it down and start again you may find that ‘organisationitis’ sets in again.
If you abuse power, eventually you lose power.
These post-national socialist impositions show up the ridiculousness of their very existence with each insane decision their partisan actors decree. From the ECHR agreeing with citizens of Switzerland suing their government for not tackling climate change, to the ICC issuing arrest warrants for a democratically elected leader, they are speed running their way to irrelevance, and it can’t come a day too soon.
The sad thing is that, if it stuck to it’s principal remit, of fighting international crime, it would serve a valuable purpose, as international organized crime is soaring and presenting a serious threat to international order – in Brazil it is effectively the armed wing of the present government.
You seem to misunderstand what the ICC does.
It doesn’t have anything to do with international organized crime (though that might actually be useful), but rather the legalistic legitimation of the prosecution of leaders and nations the west proclaims its enemies.
Netanyahu is the exception to this rule, but I suppose the campaign of total devastation and murder of civilians was a bridge too far even for the ICC and they need at least a veneer of impartiality before the law.
So name some cases of Israel contravening the Geneva Conventions on the conduct of war.
In which cases of missiles being launched from buildings could you have said to Israel “You mustn’t defend yourselves against the terrorists this time!”.
The rate of civilian:combatant deaths is unprecedented in modern warfare. The UN’s statistics give an average of 9 civilians to 1 combatant in the wars since 1945. Israel’s figure is around 1:1, and that is in urban areas where the opponent considers the deaths of its own people to be a war aim, for use in its international propaganda (for which you have fallen completely).
Yeah yeah, those poor Israelis, everyone’s against them, which is obviously why they can literally get away with anything. The ICC has proclaimed the Serbs to be genocidaires for killing 8000 men and boys from the age of 15 upward (and no western official has ever disputed this ruling), but what Israel is doing to a primarily civilian population (which is around 50% children) is totally above board.
The official death toll in Gaza (as opposed to the Israeli propaganda you spout) is well over 50 thousand and the actual number is likely to be triple that considering the population density, while Hamas killed less than 1500 people, according to the Israelis. If you don’t believe the numbers, how about you watch some videos of what Gaza looks like and tell me how the ratio can be 1:1 when 90% of everything has been totally destroyed? Do the Israeli angels pluck them from the buildings and spirit then away to safety right before dropping 1000 pound bombs?
But sure, I’m the one going hard on propaganda, while you’re pretending that Israel is somehow “humanely” killing people, when the kill ratio is probably closer to 100 Palestinians for 1 Israeli and that they should be thankful for it to boot.
For the record, I don’t have a dog in this fight and personally think the Palestinians were sold down the river a long time ago, which means the Israelis can do whatever they want because the American political class is in their pockets (AIPAC + Netanyahu demanding american interventions in Iraq, Iran, Syria), but it’s crazy how triggered you people get when you’re confronted with even a whiff of what’s actually happening (which wasn’t even the point I was trying to make).
So you believe Hamas reports 100% but Israeli figures are just “propaganda”? Open your eyes and you will see you have been fooled by an organisation whose sole stated aim is the genocide and total destruction of Israel and any Jews they can lay their hands on.
I believe that if you level a city of 2 million people on a surface of 365 km2 there’s likely to be an immense amount of carnage, especially when it’s done with vast amounts of high grade weaponry. I also believe my eyes when I watch videos of the devastation that’s been wreaked there:
https://youtu.be/VGs7lPN1XCk?si=lZmptXxBL3pccyWk
This is a city that’s been bombed non stop for a year and you believe the Israelis are magically avoiding civilian casualties while doing so? You realize that 50 thousand is just 2,5% of the population there (which is why I’m sceptical that the number of casualties is so low).
Now, what I do have a hard time believing is that Israel boosters aren’t satisfied with the fact that Israel literally gets away with actions that would be described as war crimes and genocide if anyone else were doing them, but that you people complain about victimhood on top of it.
I have no problem with Israel and no particular love for Palestine, but it’s ridiculous to claim that Hamas is a threat to the Israelis, when in fact it was Netanyahu who built them up and funded them to undermine any chance of a peace process (if any of you bothered to read Israeli media you’d know this – see the link attached). Israel is getting exactly what it wants (destruction and political cover), so please stop pestering me about how unfair it is that I’m pointing out the obvious (at least to people who can put 2 & 2 together).
https://m.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Netanyahu-Money-to-Hamas-part-of-strategy-to-keep-Palestinians-divided-583082
I don’t have a dog in the fight either but this “proportional response theory” defies reason.
You’re absolutely correct that one side is inflicting far more casualties on the side that started the fight. But what would have been the appropriate response to create a deterrent? A public scolding or does the stronger side that received the sucker punch need to limit response to an identical number of casualties regardless of how many lives it might lose by being more technical, compassionate and discerning?
Well it kind of depends on how you want to frame the conflict. Lots of people here will try and make a moral argument in the “rules based international order” framework (when we do it it’s fine, but it’s an atrocity when it’s someone outside the club), which I find both hypocritical and laughable. But to stay consistent, the only thing that makes sense there would be the “proportional response theory”.
But you could also make a case for realism, i.e. facts on the ground, which although not fair, is just how it is and which I could at least respect as being honest (might makes right has always been the way of things, it’s just that most westerners won’t admit to it because they grew up being told how just and impartial they are).
I don’t think there can be a fair solution at this point (at least not without some massive geopolitical changes) and so the long and short of it is, the Israelis will wipe the Palestinians out; or send them to Europe, which would be another wave of migration we’d have Netanyahu to thank for, not that the Israel boosters have figured this out (although these are often the same people who loathe the muslim refugees). It’s just a matter of finding the right moment (and this just might be it), but I don’t particularly care for the attempted brainwashing above that tries to sell it as morally justified to do so.
But don’t you think the primary job of a President or Executive is to keep the Nation’s citizens safe? There’s gotta be a level of deterrent that says to the aggressor, this will not be tolerated ever again.
Hiroshima was a shock and awe campaign meant to subdue and deter. Rational people can debate the morality of it but you will have plenty of smart people that claim it saved total lives and created a safer world in the long run.
These are hard questions. At the very least, I think you should acknowledge that Israel was put in an extremely difficult spot with no great options.
I don’t think you can create a safer environment with violence, quite the opposite really (aside from nuclear threats I suppose, but that’s hardly viable in this scenario). What also gets buried in the current hysteria is that this situation didn’t start on October 7th and the Israelis conducted regular bombing campaigns in Gaza for decades, so who’s the aggressor then? They call it “mowing the grass”, it’s even got a wikipedia article that points out there is no strategy there, just terror basically:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mowing_the_grass
Now I don’t know about you, but if my hometown was regularly bombed by my neighbor, I’d probably become quite militant as well and the fact of the matter is, every time the Israelis bomb Gaza, they’re basically conducting a recruitment drive for Hamas, because for every kid that dies, her brothers, uncles and father will probably become terrorists to “avenge her”. This in addition to Gaza being an open-air prison where the people can’t travel freely, can’t exploit their resources (theres gas in the sea off the coast which Israel wants and isn’t letting anyone touch) and have basically been under embargo for decades.
I also think that Israel actually wants to get rid of the Palestinians and so this entire situation works just fine for their long term plans. If they wanted safety and deterrence, they should’ve found a peaceful solution, but I don’t really think that’s possible anymore, therefore they’ll wipe them out or deport them to Europe and/or to whomever the Americans can pressure or pay off to take them in the region.
As for the difficult spot, maybe Netanyahu shouldn’t have been funding the very same terrorists he’s been denouncing:
https://m.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Netanyahu-Money-to-Hamas-part-of-strategy-to-keep-Palestinians-divided-583082
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-10-20/ty-article-opinion/.premium/a-brief-history-of-the-netanyahu-hamas-alliance/0000018b-47d9-d242-abef-57ff1be90000
Would the Brits have been justified in sending the RAF to carpet bomb the Republican housing estates of Belfast or invading the Republic of Ireland in retaliation to the IRA terrorist campaign?
The IRA lived and operated in heavily built up areas as a means of protecting themselves the same as Hamas do, and often hid across the border in the Republic,
Therefore logically if you support Israeli policy in regards to the recent conflict then surely you’d have supported Britain doing the same?
That’s an interesting comparison, but I think not entirely valid.
Firstly, the IRA never had a policy of destroying Britain, merely ending the Union, and the partition of Ireland. If the IRA had a genocidal policy of trying to drive Anglo-Saxons into the sea the equation might have been different.
Secondly, if you are going to draw a comparison between NI and the Middle East, the plantation of the British settlers in NI is surely equivalent to the Arab invaders during the Caliphate. It’s the Jews who are the older inhabitants who were displaced, comparable to the nationalist Irish.
Thirdly, is it really true to state that the Israelis have “carpet bombed” Gaza? The phrase belong to an indiscriminate WW2 type bombing. I’m not able to make a judgment on this, and there is so much propaganda the truth is hidden, but I doubt that’s an accurate description of what has been done.
I don’t know enough about the situation to comment but I don’t believe the IRA did anything on the scale on Oct 7.
The Brighton bombing was an attempt to assassinate the British Prime Minister and most of the top Ministers in the Cabinet (Tebbits wife was left in a wheelchair).
They murdered the Queens cousin Lord Mountbatten.
They murdered over 1700 people, and received a large proportion of their funding from the US.
There are numerous other atrocities carried out by their members, so after this brief history lesson I’ll ask again. Would Britain have been justified in using the same level of force against the IRA and killing as many civilians as the IDF have in their campaign against Hamas?
If not why not?
Ok so I just compared the two. You’re comparing a 32 year statistic where the targets were mostly British security to a single day attack where the targets were mostly civilians. Hamas indiscriminately slaughtered 815 civilians in one day including 36 children. There are still dozens of civilian hostages. I’m really failing to see how this is a good comparison.
Are you suppressing the barbarism of that day? Additionally, the IDF is not targeting civilians and you’re fully aware that Hamas sets up its military operations in places that maximize civilian casualties.
So to summarise, you believe it would have been morally wrong for the RAF to bomb civilian areas in order to kill the IRA Commanders who lived and operated there, but it’s justified for the IDF to bomb (much more densely populated) civilian areas in order to kill the Hamas fighters living and operating there?
I think that’s utter hypocrisy personally
No, I’m saying your example is very bad. The military aspect of the conflicts are not comparable. You’re continuing to glaze over a barbaric civilian mass casualty event on a geographically small nation.
That did not occur in Northern Ireland.
What are bombings such as Enniskillen if not a barbaric civilian mass casualty event?
As I say, utter hypocrisy
800 less people died Billy Bob. How many people carried out that event and how many people carried out Oct 7?
You’re so obsessed with virtue signaling moral superiority that you’re ignoring numbers.
Hamas is killing residents of gaza by using them as meat shields.
The IRA operated inside the civilian areas of Northern Ireland, using those civilians as a means of protection against a much stronger opponent.
However luckily for the civilians of Belfast etc the British have morals and realised it was wrong to kill vast numbers of them in order to kill a few terrorists. Unfortunately for the civilians in Gaza the Israelis are a bunch of Neanderthals who have no such qualms about butchering thousands of children in order to kill a few Hamas fighters
I hope Trump pulls out of the United Nations!
Always felt these stupid courts would be supported when they were dealing with petty African despots but as soon as they turned their gaze to more important players they’d be exposed. Another country arresting a country’s President of Prime Minister is tantamount to a declaration of war. Anyone thinking of arresting Putin or Netanyahu surely knows they command nations with enough nukes to turn your country into glass.
Well done Hungary … the ICC is an ideological mess.
Almost as if the writer hoped we wouldn’t know that the US tariffs are only reciprocal measures – there is not a single case where Trump’s 2 March tariffs were applied to countries that had no tariff barriers against the US (or equivalent barriers against US goods).
In most of the countries affected, the 2 March tariffs are only half the tariff rates they levy on US goods. In no cases are the 2 March tariffs more than the tariffs the other countries levy on US goods.
So the writer thinks: UK, EU tariffs good – US tariffs bad.
Or in short, Orange-Man Bad.
So not an economic argument, but just Trump Derangement Syndrome.
Israel and the US have just agreed a reciprocal 0% tariff deal. That’s how this could be played if the TDS is set aside.
I’m still trying to figure out whether the tariff policies and amounts you cited line up with reality. Vietnam was slapped with a 46% tariff rate, but only seems to impose a 9% tariff rate for US imports.
Vietnamese tariffs varied greatly across different types of goods from the US. The tariff on liquid natural gas from the US was only 5%. But other tariffs were very high indeed: on cars, the tariff on some US manufacturers was 64%, and on others, never lower than 45%.
Keep in mind also that the trade imbalance between the US and Vietnam was third in the world, only behind China and Mexico.
There was, however, a third factor. Vietnam, in advance of the 2 April announcement, was already proposing reductions. For cars, it proposed 32%. On 3 April, there was a phone call from General Secretary To Lam to President Trump, proposing a bilateral 0%, so it is likely that the 46% rate of 2 April will be very short lived. The US has an interest both in reducing the trade deficit with Vietnam, but also in maintaining and deepening friendly relations.
Lastly, and crucially, the 2 April policy was not designed to achieve reciprocity of tariffs, but reciprocity of trade flow. Where a country currently running a surplus with the US raises its tariffs further (or devalues its currency, etc.), the US tariff will automatically rise. Where a surplus country removes barriers to US goods, the tariff automatically falls. So the new system incentivises countries to move towards free trade with the US, not to enter into a trade war. Israel, Vietnam and many others are likely to move in this intended direction. Others, for ideological reasons, perhaps the EU, may prefer a trade war (if this happens, then it looks likely that the UK under Starmer will diverge from the EU in this area of policy).
There’s a complicating factor: the role of the petrodollar, which previously incentivised the US to run trade deficits. Are the Trump administration’s economic advisors working on the assumption that the post-petrodollar world is just around the corner? If so, they probably don’t want to shout about it, lest they speed the process up.
According to Trumps board NZ hits America with 20% tariffs, and he’s retaliating with 10% ones.
The truth is the average tariff on US goods entering NZ is 1.9%. The bloke is an imbecile
Lies damn lies and stats.
Trump appears to be quite good at the first two, I think his grasp of the third is rather tenuous however
The ICC is the enemy of the Liberal World Order. The sooner it is defunded into oblivion the better
I have read that the clowns who issue these verdicts are not judges or even lawyers. Is this true?
Although international law overreach is a problem (in many areas of law), it wasn’t in the ICC area as long as only African tin pot dictators were brought before it. The culprits, who should have been brought before the ICC in recent years, have been mainly Western but they have remained untouchable. That is a major global scandal. The indictment of Nethanyahu offered some hope that the ICC would fulfil its mandate properly. If the West adopts the cynical view of the author of this piece, the West, its values, prestige, power and influence, will be the loser. This is probably the most disappointing piece I have read in UnHerd since becoming a subscriber.
The failure of the ICC to indict Western leaders in recent years is a major international scandal. The indictment of Netanyahu was an opportunity for the Court to redeem itself and prove that it was not an instrument of Western imperialism and hypocrisy. The reaction to Bibi’s indictment would suggest that it is. This is probably the most disappointing piece I have read in UnHerd since becoming a subscriber.