Statement of Hungarian International Lawyers Against the Blatant Disregard for International Law

11 April 2025

We, Hungarian international lawyers, observing with great concern the recent international and domestic events, guided by the best of our knowledge, professional convictions, and social responsibility, issue the following statement on certain current issues with international law relevance.

1. Bowing our heads before the victims who suffered horrors shocking the conscience of humanity, we declare our firm commitment to international efforts to eradicate the culture of impunity. We pay tribute to the historic results of all these efforts, which, at the end of the last century, led, inter alia, to the adoption of the Rome Statute establishing the International Criminal Court in The Hague, constituting a civilizational milestone. We emphasize that all States Parties must comply with their international obligations under the Rome Statute to hold perpetrators of the most serious international crimes accountable. Bearing in mind that withdrawing from the International Criminal Court is an option to all States Parties, we recall that any such measure weakens the possibilities for preventing the most egregious international crimes, international efforts to protect victims of crimes and hold perpetrators accountable, and may harm the international relations and reputation of the State concerned.

2. Recalling that our predecessors established the United Nations in the aftermath of the Second World War with the express objective to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, we are shocked to see armed conflicts erupting on the European continent and in many other parts of the world. Since Russia committed aggression against Ukraine first with the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and then the subsequent armed attack launched on 24 February 2022, we draw attention to the fact that a State that is the victim of an armed attack may legitimately request and receive external assistance in exercising its inherent right to self-defense. We also draw attention to the fact that the acquisition of territory by using force cannot be recognized as lawful, and that changing state borders is only possible through peaceful means, with the full consent of the States concerned, without any external coercion.

3. We also emphasize that our inalienable human rights, recognized after a long struggle, ensure the well-being of all of us. They protect the individual against potential abuses by authorities and strive to ensure living conditions worthy of a human being. Recalling that every person has the basic human right to return to their own country, we consider the ‘suspension of citizenship’ an unprecedented conception in international law, which, in our opinion, can easily be abused. The expulsion of a State’s own nationals from their country may, in some cases, constitute a form of exile and inhuman treatment, and appears to be contrary to human rights conventions ratified by the State concerned. Similarly, we recall that the essence of human rights, including the freedom of assembly and freedom of expression, which cannot be restricted by law, must not be less than the minimum level of protection required by international law.

I hereby sign the document ‘Statement of Hungarian international lawyers against the blatant disregard for international law’.

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Ádány, Tamás; Baller, Barbara; Berkes, Antal; Csapó, Zsuzsanna; Ganczer, Mónika; Hoffmann, Tamás; Horváth, Valéria Eszter; Jeney, Petra; Kajtár, Gábor; Kaponyi, Erzsébet; Kardos, Gábor; Kecskés, Gábor; Kende, Tamás; Kirs, Eszter; Kis, Kelemen Bence; Kiss, Amarilla; Komanovics, Adrienne; Lamm, Vanda; Lattmann, Tamás; Mihajlov, Dobromir; Molnár, Tamás; Nagy, Boldizsár; Nagy, Noémi; Őszéné Takó, Dalma; Sulyok, Gábor; Sulyok, Katalin; Szalai, Anikó; Szappanyos, Melinda; Sziebig, Orsolya Johanna; Szigeti, D. Péter; Tóth, Norbert; Török, Csaba; Vizi Balázs.

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Explanatory Note to the Statement of Hungarian International Iawyers

[Tamás Hoffmann is a Senior Research Fellow at Institute for Legal Studies and Associate Professor at Corvinus University of Budapest]

The Hungarian Government has initiated and implemented specific legislative measures that, in the opinion of most Hungarian international lawyers, clearly violates Hungary’s international legal obligations. 

On 18 March 2025, the Hungarian Parliament amended the Fundamental Law (the Hungarian constitution). The 15^th Amendment included a passage declaring that the right of the child for proper physical, mental and moral development ”takes precedence over all other fundamental rights except the right to life”. This enabled the amendment of Act LV of 2018 on the right to assembly to ban any public assembly that could harm the interests of children and use facial recognition systems to identify the participants. These measures were enacted with the explicit aim to ban Pride Marches, making Hungary the only country in the European Union that drastically infringes on the political rights of the LGBTQ+ community. 

The 15^th  Amendment of the Fundamental Law also authorized changing the Hungarian citizenship law to allow for the “suspension of citizenship”. On 1 April 2025, a new proposal was introduced in the Parliament that aims at suspending the citizenship of Hungarian citizens, who are also the citizens of other states – except for the citizenship of EU or European Free Trade Area (Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland) up to 10 years. This new legal construction is unprecedented in international law and could lead to the deportation of Hungarian citizens, who have for instance American, British, Canadian or Israeli citizenship, if they are deemed to threaten Hungarian public order or national security.

Finally, on 2 April, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is subject to an outstanding arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC), arrived in Hungary on an official invitation of the Hungarian Government. Even though Hungary has been a Member State to ICC since 2001, the Government publicly declared that it would not execute the arrest warrant and during the international press conference, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán announced that Hungary would withdraw from the International Criminal Court, making Hungary the only non-Member State in the EU.

These events, coupled with the repeated reluctance of the Hungarian Government to condemn the Russian aggression against Ukraine led to the adoption of the following declaration, which is unprecedented in the history of the Hungarian international legal community.

Photo attribution: “The Hungarian Parliament Building from the Danube” by Alex Proimos is licenced under CC BY 2.0