Armenia asks World Court to Pursue Ethnic Cleansing Case against Azerbaijan

APRIL 18, 2024

by

 The Armenian Mirror-Spectator

THE HAGUE (Public Radio of Armenia/Panorama.am) — Armenia on April 16 urged the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to hold Azerbaijan responsible for ethnic cleansing of Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh.

“After threatening to do so for years, Azerbaijan has completed the ethnic cleansing of the region and is now systematically erasing all traces of ethnic Armenians’ presence,” Armenia’s representative, Yeghishe Kirakosyan, said on the second day of hearings at the UN’s top court.

“There is no better example of racial discrimination, upsetting peace and security than Azerbaijan’s recent armed aggressions. which resulted in ethnic cleansing of all of Nagorno Karabakh,” he said.

“To the great regret of Armenia and the international community, not even this Court was able to stop Azerbaijan’s race of ethnic cleansing. In September 2023, after starving the ethnic Armenians of Nagorno Karabakh for nine months by blocking the Lachin corridor, in fragrance violation of the Court’s two orders on provisional measures, Azerbaijan launched an unprovoked attack killing hundreds and forcing over 100,000 ethnic Armenians to flee their ancestral homes,” Kirakosyan stated.

On Monday, April 15, Azerbaijan told the court that most of Armenia’s complaints related to the armed conflicts over Nagorno-Karabakh did not fall within the scope of the UN treaty.

It also accused Armenia of not genuinely engaging in negotiations before bringing the case to the ICJ. Kirakosyan rejected these claims.

“Armenia negotiated with Azerbaijan in good faith and pursued discussions far beyond the point of utility,” he said.

“Armenia has no claims on Azerbaijani territory and is committed to establishing conditions for genuine and enduring peace,” Kirakosyan said.

“History has taught us that genuine peace is built on justice, accountability, truth and reconciliation,” Armenia’s representative stated.

International law professor Pierre d’Argent representing Armenia on April 16 responded to the preliminary objections raised by Azerbaijan.

“Azerbaijan’s second preliminary objection seeks to exclude from the debate on the merits only certain allegations of violation of the Convention made by Armenia, namely allegations of arbitrary detentions of ethnic Armenians, allegations of enforced disappearances of ethnic Armenians, lastly, Armenia’s claims relating to various acts of violence committed against ethnic Armenians,” d’Argent said.

“As you know, Azerbaijan’s position has apparently changed in the course of the proceedings. The question is, however, whether it has really evolved, as it is difficult to know what has changed. The distinctions Azerbaijan is making are irrelevant and meaningless under the Convention, and all the more so because there is no doubt that the conflict between Azerbaijan and the ethnic Armenians when they lived in Nagorno-Karabakh had very marked ethnic origins and dimensions. Azerbaijan yesterday acknowledged that the conflict before the Court is an “ethnic conflict.”

He continued, “Thus, this conflict is not an ordinary inter-state war, contrary to what, in a perfectly contradictory and decontextualised manner, Azerbaijan is trying to convince you by claiming that within this conflict there are particularly cruel and shocking acts of violence which have nothing to do with the ethnic origin of their victims.

“This conflict is an ethnic conflict because for three decades, under the pretext of territorial integrity, Azerbaijan refused to accept the self-determination of the Armenians living on their ancestral lands in Nagorno-Karabakh. This conflict was-and still is-ethnically motivated and discriminatory, just as Azerbaijan’s decision to put an end to this self-determination through its military operations in 2020 and, ultimately, in September 2023, was ethnically motivated and discriminatory. What Azerbaijan, through the voice of its President, calls its ‘war of liberation,’ or its ‘patriotic war,’ involved numerous discriminatory violations of the fundamental rights of ethnic Armenians, including when they took part in the hostilities. Moreover, this war resulted in the complete ethnic cleansing of Nagorno-Karabakh in defiance of the court’s orders, which were intended to protect plausible Convention rights that were under serious threat.

“According to its own national narrative, Azerbaijan thus ‘liberated’ itself by waging war at the end of 2020, and then — after a complete ceasefire — by pursuing its objectives through the gradual strangulation of Nagorno-Karabakh, right up to the final coup de force in September 2023 by which the ethnic Armenian inhabitants of Nagorno-Karabakh were driven out. Thus, for Azerbaijan, its ‘liberation’ involved the rejection of any autonomy for ethnic Armenians and, ultimately, their forced exclusion from their ancestral lands, which is consolidated by the denial, destruction or alteration of any trace of the centuries-old Armenian presence in this territory. This, ladies and gentlemen of the court, is the objective and the fruit of Azerbaijan’s ‘patriotic war:’ a homeland without ethnic Armenians,” the law professor remarked.

Yeghishe Kirakosyan Represents Armenia in Case Against Azerbaijan at ICJ

APRIL 18, 2024

by

 The Armenian Mirror-Spectator

Armenia’s Representative on International Legal Matters Yeghishe Kirakosyan on April 16 delivered opening remarks at a hearing of Application of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination (Armenia v. Azerbaijan) at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), The Hague.

Kirakosyan’s full statement is provided below with minor edits for space considerations.

On 16 September 2021, Armenia instituted these proceedings against Azerbaijan because of that State’s egregious policies and practices of racial discrimination against ethnic Armenians. Azerbaijan’s government has for decades cultivated an echo chamber of racist hatred against ethnic Armenians. The children of Azerbaijan are taught to hate and kill Armenians in their school textbooks. The State media spews vile hate speech. Public officials dehumanize ethnic Armenians and call for their complete elimination. This is the pervasive State-sanctioned racism that Azerbaijan’s counsel dismissed yesterday as “so-called” Armenophobia. A climate in which literal axe murderers are awarded, promoted, and glorified as national heroes for killing Armenians in peace time.

This longstanding State policy of racial hatred came to a violent head in September 2020 when Azerbaijan launched a war of aggression against the ethnic Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh. The stated goal was to eliminate and expel ethnic Armenians from their homeland. As President Aliyev later revealed “Hatred for the enemy … was driving us forward.” For 44 days, Azerbaijani soldiers systematically murdered, tortured, and abused ethnic Armenians. They gleefully filmed themselves carrying out unspeakable acts of violence against ethnic Armenian civilians and prisoners of war, all while shouting racial slurs and insults. Through this violence and intimidation, Azerbaijan ethnically cleansed large swathes of Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020, expelling at least 30,000 people from their homes. President Aliyev declared victory, proclaiming that no songs would be sung in Armenian in those lands ever again.

In the aftermath of these shocking atrocities, which were the culmination of decades of racial discrimination against ethnic Armenians, Armenia sought accountability under the CERD [Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination]. Importantly, Armenia also sought the Court’s urgent protection for those vulnerable ethnic Armenians who, at that time, had not yet been killed or expelled from their homeland.

Mr. President, Members of the Court, we all know what has happened since then. To the deep regret of Armenia and the international community, not even the Court was able to stop the tide of Azerbaijan’s racist campaign of ethnic cleansing. In September 2023, after starving the ethnic Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh for nine months by blocking the Lachin Corridor, in flagrant violation of the Court’s first two Orders on Provisional Measures, Azerbaijan launched an unprovoked attack, killing hundreds and forcing over 100,000 ethnic Armenians to flee their ancestral homeland. To this day almost 200 remain missing, and their families suffer without knowing the fate of their loved ones. Just as with the Court’s previous Orders, Azerbaijan remains in defiance of the Court’s third Order of 17 November 2023. It has done nothing to “ensure that persons who have left Nagorno-Karabakh after 19 September 2023 and who wish to return to Nagorno-Karabakh are able to do so in a safe, unimpeded and expeditious manner.”

After threatening to do so for years, Azerbaijan has completed the ethnic cleansing of the region and is now consolidating it by systematically erasing all traces of ethnic Armenian presence, including Armenian cultural and religious heritage. All this is happening while this case is pending before you. Just last month, President Aliyev lit a bonfire in Stepanakert, Nagorno Karabakh, and tweeted that the bonfire was “doing the final cleaning.”

Mr. President, Members of the Court: this is the context in which Armenia is pursuing claims against Azerbaijan under the CERD.

Faced with Armenia’s claims and the overwhelming evidence against it, Azerbaijan has desperately sought to introduce a false sense of parity between the Parties by instituting its own case against Armenia. But the challenge for Azerbaijan is that it has no videos of racist atrocities to show and no pervasive hate speech by public officials to quote. So, what has Azerbaijan done? It has resurrected three-decade-old historical grievances that clearly fall outside the temporal scope of the Court’s jurisdiction. Just yesterday we heard Azerbaijan misrepresenting an early twentieth century national ideology as racist, which has nothing to do with the mainstream political realities in Armenia today. Azerbaijan has also introduced outlandish claims about alleged environmental damage that have nothing to do with racial discrimination. And it is even attempting, for a third time, to convince the Court that its allegations about landmines fall within the scope of the CERD.

As Armenia will explain during the hearings that begin next week, the vast majority of Azerbaijan’s claims fall squarely outside the Court’s jurisdiction. Yet again, however, Azerbaijan is pursuing its same tired strategy of mirroring and whataboutism. It is undoubtedly aware of the jurisdictional challenges faced by the case it has brought against Armenia and it is now desperately attempting to convince the Court that Armenia’s case also faces jurisdictional hurdles. But nothing could be further from the truth. In light of the manifest weakness of its Objections, Azerbaijan is simply hoping that the two sets of objections will cancel each other out.

Mr. President, Members of the Court, this is a cynical strategy of last resort. As Armenia will explain today, neither of Azerbaijan’s objections stands up to even cursory scrutiny, and its tactic must fail.

Azerbaijan’s First Objection is simply not serious. Not only does Azerbaijan’s understanding of the negotiation requirement of Article 22 turn the Court’s jurisprudence on its head, Azerbaijan’s presentation of the facts also distorts reality. What Azerbaijan refers to as “negotiations about negotiations” was in fact an agenda imposed by Azerbaijan with the sole purpose of prolonging negotiations for as long as possible. What Azerbaijan refers to as a “confidence-building” exercise, was happening at a time when the Azerbaijani army was still expelling ethnic Armenians from their homes. While Azerbaijan was making a so-called “proposal for joint action”, it was also torturing ethnic Armenian detainees, and destroying Armenian cultural heritage. While Azerbaijan, as it claims, was making “progress” in negotiations it was opening its military trophies park and ridiculing ethnic Armenians with racist mannequins. Mr. President, Members of the Court, in such a context, one year of negotiations was one year too many. Armenia nevertheless negotiated with Azerbaijan in good faith and pursued discussions far beyond the point of futility. Armenia has fulfilled the requirements of Article 22 in letter and spirit, and Azerbaijan’s First Objection fails.