Asbarez: What TRIPP Actually Commits

A sign welcomes visitors to Armenia’s Syunik Province at its historic fortress

BY DR. KEVORK HAGOPJIAN, ESQ.

The TRIPP Framework Agreement is 7 pages long. It was signed days before the elections in Armenia. Both facts justify careful reading. What does Armenia actually receive under the TRIPP Framework Agreement that is legally guaranteed, enforceable, and not contingent on future political developments outside its control? That question deserves a precise answer.

Start with the ownership architecture. Under Article 3(2), the TRIPP Development Company (TDC) will be controlled 74 percent by TDC US, a Delaware-incorporated subsidiary of the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation. Armenia holds 26 percent. Armenia contributes sovereign territory, transit corridors, land acquisition obligations at its own financial cost, regulatory facilitation, and political risk exposure.

What does the U.S. side guarantee in return? Article 5(6) answers plainly: the United States “intends to provide for and/or assist in securing financing for TRIPP Projects, subject to the availability of funds.” An intent subject to fund availability is not a commitment. It is an aspiration dressed in treaty language.

Even more troubling is the imbalance between binding and non-binding obligations. Armenia “shall,” “agrees,” and “confirms”: it must facilitate legislation, permits, regulatory processes, land acquisition, concessions, tax exemptions, and private border-service arrangements. By contrast, the U.S. often merely “intends” or “expects,” including with respect to financing, authorization, and implementation. This is not a technical drafting issue. It is the legal core of the problem: Armenia assumes concrete sovereign obligations, while many anticipated benefits remain conditional, future-oriented, and politically dependent.

In addition, the sovereignty framing throughout the agreement is emphatic but functionally hollow. Armenia “retains full sovereignty” over TRIPP implementation areas, the document repeats. And yet Article 6(2) grants the TDC exclusive land use and development rights for an initial 49-year term, extendable to 99 years, fully assignable to Special Purpose Vehicles (SPV) populated by concessionaires, contractors, and operators of the TDC’s choosing. Article 4(3) explicitly empowers the TDC to select those third parties. Armenia has no enforceable veto. In other words, the flag stays Armenian; but operational control does not.

Article 5(5) compounds this. It provides that in any conflict with Armenian law, this Agreement applies, consistent with the Constitution. This is not a standard treaty supremacy clause. Combined with Article 3(6), which commits Armenia to adopt “deviations” from its own legislation on joint-stock companies, procurement, and public-private partnerships, it creates a tailor-made legal regime for TRIPP that overrides ordinary Armenian statutory protections on transparency, competition, and anti-corruption oversight. Future parliaments will inherit these obligations on a 99-year horizon.

Several additional provisions compound the asymmetry. Article 6(1) requires Armenia to expropriate, clear, and deliver land within TRIPP implementation areas (including privately held parcels) entirely at its own financial cost, with no reimbursement mechanism and no ceiling on that expropriation liability defined anywhere in the agreement. Article 8(3) commits Armenia to using private operators for customer-facing border services within TRIPP areas, without requiring that those operators meet Armenian national security vetting standards or excluding beneficial ownership by parties whose interests may be adverse to Armenia’s, a significant omission on a frontier of acute strategic sensitivity.

Article 9 establishes comprehensive tax exemptions for the TDC structure (no dividend tax, no capital gains tax, no transfer tax) with no reciprocal fiscal mechanism returning value to the Armenian state beyond its 26 percent stake, whose actual worth depends entirely on financing commitments the agreement does not guarantee. And while Article 3(7) explicitly protects U.S. ownership of TDC US from third-party acquisition, no equivalent protection prevents adverse third-party participation in Armenian SPVs through subcontracting, financing arrangements, or intermediary corporate structures. Furthermore, there is no binding arbitration or dispute resolution mechanism should disputes arise (Article 10 provides only for consultations). Each of these provisions, taken alone, might be negotiable. Taken together, they describe a consistent pattern.

The asymmetry becomes geopolitically stark also when one examines what TRIPP does and does not operationalize. Azerbaijan’s objective, unimpeded connectivity between mainland Azerbaijan and Nakhichevan through Armenian territory, is institutionalized through concrete infrastructure rights, concession structures, and dedicated governance mechanisms. Armenia’s “reciprocal benefits,” by contrast, appear nowhere as enforceable entitlements. There is no treaty-binding language guaranteeing Armenian transit rights through Azerbaijani territory, no commitment to lift the Turkish-Azerbaijani transportation blockade, and no minimum investment threshold that must be met before Armenia’s obligations activate. 

A framework that concretely institutionalizes one party’s primary strategic gain while leaving the other’s dependent on future political goodwill is not an incomplete agreement awaiting implementation. It is a completed agreement that favors one party. The reversion clause, the reserved matters, and the sovereignty affirmations are genuine provisions, but they operate within a governance structure where 74 percent controlling ownership, New York-governed shareholders arrangements, and U.S.-selected concessionaires define the practical reality of decision-making. Formal protections that exist inside a structure designed around foreign majority control are not the same as enforceable parity.

Critics will note correctly that Azerbaijan is not a party to this agreement and that demanding enforceable Armenian transit rights through Azerbaijani territory within a U.S.-Armenia bilateral instrument is legally misconceived. That is true,  but it sharpens rather than resolves the concern. The Framework Agreement’s own preamble identifies enabling connectivity between mainland Azerbaijan and Nakhichevan as a central strategic purpose. Armenia is therefore assuming concrete, binding, 99-year infrastructure obligations whose primary strategic beneficiary is a third party not bound by this instrument.

The tripartite Washington understandings of August 2025, which did involve Azerbaijan, generated political commitments regarding reciprocal Armenian connectivity. Those commitments have not been converted into any binding legal instrument before Armenia signed. The sequence matters: Armenia’s obligations are now treaty-locked; the reciprocal benefits remain politically contingent.

To remain legally objective, it is fair to acknowledge that Armenia has not been negotiating from strength, and no legal critique changes that geopolitical reality. U.S. government’s development finance backing and returning infrastructure represent real, if long-term, benefits. But strategic vulnerability is not an argument for signing without scrutiny, it is an argument for scrutinizing more carefully. A state with limited leverage cannot afford to discover after ratification that its obligations were binding while its benefits were not. Armenia’s pursuit of connectivity, prosperity, and regional integration through TRIPP is legitimate and necessary.

The question this article raises is not whether Armenia should engage, it is whether the current legal architecture of that engagement adequately protects Armenian interests and sovereignty, and whether ratification should proceed before that question is properly addressed. Seven pages have been signed. Ninety-nine years have not yet begun.

Dr. Kevork Hagopjian, Esq. is an attorney and human rights advocate with expertise in international law, minority rights, civil litigation, and community engagement. He holds a Ph.D. in Law from the University of Vienna, along with two LL.M. degrees in Public International Law from SOAS, University of London and U.S. Law from George Mason University as well as an LL.B. from University of Aleppo. His doctoral research led to the publication of a book on “The rights of Armenian minorities in Lebanon and Turkey under National and International law”. In addition to legal practice, he facilitates dialogue and peacebuilding efforts in divided or post-conflict communities. With experience spanning legal, intergovernmental, nonprofit and civil society sectors, Dr Hagopjian remains actively engaged in global conversations on justice, accountability, and human dignity.

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