DECLARATIONS ABOUT SOME ‘HIGHER PRIORITY PRINCIPLES’ ARE A FICTION: NAGORNO-KARABAKH MP
arminfo
August 12, 2011
The declarations about some “higher priority principles” of the
international law are a fiction, Vahram Atanessyan, the chairman of the
Standing Committee on Foreign Relations of the National Assembly of
the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, said in an interview to ArmInfo, when
asked to comment on a statement by Mubariz Gurbanly, representative
of Azerbaijan’s ruling party.
More specifically, Gurbanly said that “the principles and the norms
of the international law give priority to territorial integrity and
sovereignty. That’s why Azerbaijan’s key demand during the Nagorno-
Karabakh peace talks is its territorial integrity and sovereignty.”
According to Atanessyan, the Declaration on Principles of
International Law adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1970 says:
“In their interpretation and application the above principles are
interrelated and each principle should be construed in the context
of the other principles.”
“So, as you may see, the international law does not give priority
to any principles as Mr.Gurbanly says. On the contrary, all of its
principles are interrelated in their interpretation and application
and none of them should be given priority over the others,” Atanessyan
said.
Concerning the Kazan meeting Gurbanly said that “Ilham Aliyev
reiterated during that meeting that Azerbaijan was ready to resolve
the conflict in accordance with the international law and in the
framework of its territorial integrity.”
“Let’s drop the question how come Mr.Gurbanly knows what exactly
President Aliyev said in Kazan and answer the question whether the
international law guarantees ‘Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity and
sovereignty’ the way Mr.Gurbanly sees it. I would like to quote one
more excerpt from the UN Declaration on Principles of International
Law: ‘Every State has the duty to refrain from any forcible action
which deprives peoples referred to above in the elaboration of the
present principle of their right to self-determination and freedom
and independence. In their actions against, and resistance to, such
forcible action in pursuit of the exercise of their right to self-
determination, such peoples are entitled to seek and to receive support
in accordance with the purposes and principles of the Charter,'”
Atanessyan said.
And so, according to the Nagorno-Karabakh parliamentarian, the
international law obliges Azerbaijan, who joined the UN in March 1992,
to refrain from any forcible action depriving the Armenians of Nagorno-
Karabakh in the elaboration of the present principle of their right
to self-determination and freedom and independence.
“As State Secretary of Azerbaijan Lala Shevket-Gajiyeva admitted later,
‘Azerbaijan bombarded Stepanakert continuously for 120 days.’ It was
a forcible action aimed at depriving the Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians
from elaborating their right to self-determination. In their pursuit of
the exercise of this right, the latter resisted Azerbaijan’s forcible
actions by organizing collective self-defense,” Atanessyan said.
Referring to the above-mentioned Declaration the MP said that the
actions to elaborate the right to self-determination and to seek and
receive assistance in so doing “shall not be construed as authorizing
or encouraging any action which would dismember or impair, totally or
in part, the territorial integrity or political unity of sovereign
and independent States conducting themselves in compliance with
the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples as
described above and thus possessed of a government representing the
whole people belonging to the territory without distinction as to
race, creed or color.” In this context, Atanessyan wonders if the
independent Azerbaijan acted in accordance with the principle of
equal rights and self-determination of peoples. His answer is no.
“One of the first legal documents adopted by the newly independent
Republic of Azerbaijan was the law on abolishing the Nagorno-Karabakh
Autonomous District (November 24 1991), while the UN Declaration
says that ‘a government represents the whole people belonging to the
territory.’ So, if a government does not respect the principle of equal
rights and self-determination of peoples, it does not represent the
whole people. Consequently, the people whose self-determination right
has been violated by the forcible actions of a government refusing
to represent it can be no longer considered as ‘belonging to the
territory’ claimed by that government,” Atanessyan said.
Thus, according to the MP, the international law gives priority not to
irrational territorial integrity but to a specific territory ruled by a
government “representing the whole people belonging to that territory”
by respecting the principle of equal rights and self-determination
of peoples.
“Does the Government of the Republic of Azerbaijan represent the
people/population of Nagorno-Karabakh? No. And the reason is known:
from its very first day that government refused to respect the
principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples. For the
same reason the people/population of Nagorno-Karabakh does not belong
to the territory referred to as integral by Azerbaijan.”
“According to Baku’s logic, the people/population of Nagorno-Karabakh
has the right to self-determination ‘exclusively in the framework of
Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity. Let’s see what the UN Declaration
says: ‘The establishment of a sovereign and independent State,
the free association or integration with an independent State or the
emergence into any other political status freely determined by a people
constitute modes of implementing the right of self-determination by
that people.’ So, as we may see, the first mode of implementing the
right of self-determination is ‘the establishment of a sovereign and
independent State,’ followed by the free association or integration
with an independent State or the emergence into any other political
status freely determined by a people. The expression of the will of a
people is defined by the mediators as the key mechanism for determining
the final political status of Nagorno-Karabakh. And it was exactly
because of Azerbaijan’s free interpretations of the international
law that there was no breakthrough in Kazan,” Atanessyan said.
Concerning Baku’s official statement that “Azerbaijan has the right
to solve the Nagorno-Karabakh problem by means of force,” Atanessyan
quoted the international law: “Every State likewise has the duty to
refrain from the threat or use of force to violate international lines
of demarcation, such as armistice lines, established by or pursuant
to an international agreement to which it is a party or which it is
otherwise bound to respect.”