{"id":2433,"date":"2023-08-09T21:24:00","date_gmt":"2023-08-09T17:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/artsakhforum.net\/?p=2433"},"modified":"2024-03-29T21:38:14","modified_gmt":"2024-03-29T17:38:14","slug":"top-international-lawyer-calls-azerbaijani-blockade-of-nagorno-karabakh-genocide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artsakhforum.net\/?p=2433","title":{"rendered":"Top International Lawyer Calls Azerbaijani Blockade Of Nagorno-Karabakh Genocide"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The founding prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has described the current blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh by Azerbaijan as a genocide.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an expert opinion requested by Nagorno-Karabakh\u2019s ethnic Armenian leader in late July, Luis Moreno Ocampo, an Argentine lawyer who served at the Hague court from 2003-2012, stressed that \u201cthere is an ongoing Genocide against 120,000 Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the\u00a0document\u00a0<\/a>published in New York on August 7, 2023, and titled \u201cGenocide against Armenians in 2023\u201d the 71-year-old lawyer who successfully prosecuted for crimes against humanity three heads of state, including the president of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir, said that \u201cthe blockade of the Lachin Corridor by the Azerbaijani security forces impeding access to any food, medical supplies, and other essentials should be considered a Genocide under Article II, (c) of the Genocide Convention: \u2018Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere are no crematories, and there are no machete attacks. Starvation is the invisible Genocide weapon. Without immediate dramatic change, this group of Armenians will be destroyed in a few weeks. Starvation as a method to destroy people was neglected by the entire international community when it was used against Armenians in 1915, Jews and Poles in 1939, Russians in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg) in 1941, and Cambodians in 1975\/1976. Starvation was also neglected when used in Srebrenica in the winter of 1993\/1994,\u201d Ocampo wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He reminded that analyzing the Srebrenica case, the International Court of Justice ruled that \u201cdeprivation of food, medical care, shelter or clothing\u201d constitutes Genocide within the meaning of Article II(c) of the Genocide Convention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cState parties of the Genocide Convention assumed the duty to prevent and punish Genocide. The International Court of Justice ruled that state parties should \u2018not wait until the perpetration of Genocide commences,\u2019 and \u2018The whole point of the obligation is to prevent or attempt to prevent the occurrence of the act,\u2019\u201d the lawyer noted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his expert opinion, Ocampo wrote that \u201cthere is a reasonable basis to believe that a Genocide is being committed against Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh in 2023.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He stressed that the International Court of Justice, at the request of Armenia, has already analyzed the Lachin corridor\u2019s blockade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Court focused on State liability for alleged violations of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination rather than individual criminal responsibility for the commission of Genocide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though predicated on a different set of State obligations, the Court confirmed the occurrence of the material elements of Genocide that are set out in Article II, (c) of the Genocide Convention: \u201cDeliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Court\u2019s preliminary findings considered \u201cplausible\u201d that the Lachin corridor blockade produced \u201ca real and imminent risk\u201d to the \u201chealth and life\u201d of an ethnic group, \u201cthe Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The intention, a subjective element required by the crime of Genocide, should be deduced from the facts and statements from [Azerbaijani] President [Ilham] Aliyev, who has supreme authority in Azerbaijan,\u201d Ocampo wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Argentine lawyer went on to note that \u201cPresident Aliyev, in a fair trial, would have the opportunity to provide a different interpretation of the indicia.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn the meantime, there is a reasonable basis to believe that President Aliyev has Genocidal intentions: he has knowingly, willingly, and voluntarily blockaded the Lachin Corridor even after having been placed on notice regarding the consequences of his actions by the ICJ\u2019s provisional orders,\u201d the founding prosecutor of the International Criminal Court wrote in his conclusion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Official Baku has not yet commented on the expert opinion provided by Ocampo at the request of Nagorno-Karabakh\u2019s ethnic Armenian leader Arayik Harutiunian.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, Harutiunian on August 8 issued an\u00a0urgent appeal<\/a>\u00a0to the international community, asking for immediate action to lift the blockade imposed by Azerbaijan and prevent what he called \u201cthe genocide of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

a<\/a>zatutyun.am<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The founding prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has described the current blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh by Azerbaijan as a genocide. In an expert opinion requested by Nagorno-Karabakh\u2019s ethnic Armenian leader in late July, Luis Moreno Ocampo, an Argentine lawyer who served at the Hague court from 2003-2012, stressed that \u201cthere is an ongoing Genocide against […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2434,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,45,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-en","category-news-en","category-home_slide"],"acf":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":"Luis Moreno Ocampo","source_text":"","source_url":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsakhforum.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsakhforum.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsakhforum.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsakhforum.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsakhforum.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2433"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/artsakhforum.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2433\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2439,"href":"https:\/\/artsakhforum.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2433\/revisions\/2439"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsakhforum.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artsakhforum.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsakhforum.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artsakhforum.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}