Author: Tambiyan Samvel

Oct 25 2023

In a lightning strike on Sept. 19, Azerbaijan finally extinguished more than 30 years of de facto self-governance by ethnic Armenians in the embattled enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. Framing its military assault as a “counterterror operation,” the Azerbaijani army overwhelmed Karabakh Armenian forces within 24 hours. The terms of the subsequent cease-fire included the disbanding of all local Armenian armed forces and the dissolution of the de facto institutions of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, the unrecognized entity that had declared independence from Azerbaijan on Jan. 6, 1992. 

Three days later, Azerbaijan reopened the Lachin Corridor, the sole road connecting the enclave with Armenia, which it had sealed off to civilian traffic nine months before. Over the following six days, more than 100,000 Karabakh Armenians, comprising the entire Armenian population of Karabakh, poured through the corridor to become refugees in Armenia. Only a handful of the elderly and infirm remained as the region was reincorporated into the Azerbaijani state.  

The exodus of ethnic Armenians brings their millennial presence in the eastern reaches of the Lesser Caucasus mountains to an end. Karabakh, or Artsakh as many Armenians know it, is fabled in Armenian culture as a bastion of survival during long centuries when no Armenian state existed. With its landscapes dotted with iconic Armenian churches and monasteries, Karabakh had come to symbolize a much greater array of Armenian ideals than just the claim to self-determination of its population. Its loss is perceived as a catastrophe on a level unseen since the era of the Armenian Genocide during World War I and another excruciating Armenian reckoning with the fickle calculations of great powers.

For Azerbaijan, the dissolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic restores the country’s territorial integrity after three decades of fragmentation. Control over all of Karabakh completed what had been only a partial military victory in the 2020 war, which ended with Baku recovering most but not all of the territories it had lost to Armenian forces in 1992-1994. The cease-fire that ended the fighting in 2020 also saw a reassertion of Russia’s presence in the region that threatened the congealing of a new “frozen conflict” under Moscow’s control. For many Azerbaijanis, the outcome of September’s fighting represented the end of a homeland war and the dawn of a new sense of sovereignty, now complete.

The enabling context for Azerbaijan’s offensive was the accumulated erosion of Russian control over the new status quo that Moscow had introduced when it brokered the end to the last major conflagration of Armenian-Azerbaijani violence in 2020.

Arrived at even as Azerbaijani forces assumed a commanding military position in Karabakh, the trilateral Cease-Fire Statement of Nov. 10, 2020—signed by Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia—denied Azerbaijan a complete victory. Instead, the cease-fire installed the traditional architecture of a “frozen conflict” in Eurasia: a small and dependent territory under Russia’s protection, a protracted and unproductive peace process in which Russia had a deciding stake, Russian peacekeeping boots on the ground and securitized relations between the conflict parties necessitating Russian “policing.”

Turkey—whose military involvement had enabled Azerbaijan to mount its overwhelming Blitzkrieg campaign and whose diplomatic cover allowed Baku to reject international calls for deescalation—was relegated to a largely symbolic involvement in the form of a presence at a cease-fire monitoring center near the Azerbaijani town of Agdam.

Russia’s power play in November 2020 stunned many observers, yet it brought with it several tensions. If there had been one point of consensus before 2020 between Azerbaijan and Armenia, which had previously acted as Karabakh’s patron state and Azerbaijan’s interlocutor in discussions to resolve the dispute, it was that neither wanted a Russian monopoly on the mediation of the conflict between them. Yet this was precisely the outcome institutionalized by the 2020 cease-fire. This had important implications later on, as it ensured that Yerevan and Baku would welcome a diversification of the mediation landscape.

Russian mediation also rested on the paradoxical assumption that Moscow could deliver stability and even rapprochement between Armenia and Azerbaijan while preserving its own desired outcome, namely irresolution of the conflict. Since the mid-1990s, in stark contrast to its response to Eurasia’s other secessionist conflicts, Russia’s policy in Nagorno-Karabakh had been predicated on not choosing between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Irresolution, however, pitted a Russian-sponsored status quo against Azerbaijani impatience to obtain a final outcome while it held the advantage.

Another more ruinous tension, which could not be foreseen in 2020, was introduced by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and the subsequent trajectory of its war effort there. In both material and reputational terms, Russia’s role as a security patron in the South Caucasus precipitously declined.

At the same time, the extent of Western support to Ukraine, the imposition of sanctions and the realization that the war would be long forced Russia to reevaluate its interests and commitments in the Karabakh conflict. Specifically, a new calculus emerged regarding the relative value to Moscow of Armenia and Azerbaijan that challenged Russia’s prior preference of avoiding a choice between them. 

Two dynamics that preceded Russia’s invasion of Ukraine accelerated in its wake. The first was Azerbaijani challenges to the 2020 cease-fire. These had already been evident since May 2021, when a series of escalations, skirmishes and incursions into Armenian territory along the international border between the two states began. Subsequent Azerbaijani military operations in March and August 2022 strengthened local Azerbaijani positions along lines of contact in Karabakh.

The second trend was the mobilization of a mediation effort by the European Union, which for years had been criticized for playing no role in a major interstate conflict in its neighborhood. In December 2021, at a summit in Brussels with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, European Council President Charles Michel asserted his readiness to work with Baku and Yerevan on a peace agreement. A series of meetings followed in April, May and August 2022 that at the time appeared to define a structured agenda for Armenian-Azerbaijani dialogue.

However, the EU’s mediation effort crystallized differing interpretations of that agenda among the various participants. Azerbaijan framed EU mediation as encompassing only the issues relevant at the interstate level with Armenia, rejecting EU mediation of its relations with the Armenian population in Karabakh. The EU, on the other hand, stressed its commitment to a comprehensive peace including mechanisms that would address the rights and security of the Karabakh Armenians. A potential quid pro quo emerged whereby the Armenian leadership expressed its willingness to recognize Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity, if mechanisms guaranteeing the rights and security of the Karabakh Armenians were agreed.

This approach unequivocally brought the EU’s strategy into line with its positioning on other Eurasian conflicts, finally quelling Azerbaijan’s grievance over Brussels’ hypocritical approach to its territorial integrity compared to that of Ukraine or Georgia. Yet in those settings, EU support had aligned with aspiring democratic regimes willing to discuss variable approaches to governance in contested areas.

---

---

In contrast, Azerbaijan not only expressly ruled out discussions of autonomy or distinct governance arrangements for Karabakh Armenians, it was engaging in a campaign of intimidation against them. Since February 2022, reports of Azerbaijani vehicles encircling Karabakh Armenian villages with loudspeakers urging the population to leave, as well as periodic interruptions of gas and other supplies, had become common.

This impasse highlighted the vulnerability of the EU’s approach, implemented in tandem with the United States. Having committed to resolve, rather than refreeze, the conflict, Euro-Atlantic negotiators sought credible commitments on guarantees for Karabakh Armenians that ran counter to realistic appraisals of Azerbaijan’s capacities to offer such guarantees given its internal regime politics. 

In September 2022, Azerbaijan sought to break the impasse by leveraging Armenia’s own territorial integrity, striking targets deep inside Armenia itself and occupying new pockets of territory in a two-day offensive. This triggered the increased involvement of two key EU member-states, France and Germany, leading to a decision in October 2022 to mobilize an EU monitoring mission to Armenia’s border with Azerbaijan. It was perhaps the first time in eight years that military escalation had resulted in outcomes not welcomed by or advantageous to Azerbaijan, which rejected the EU monitors’ access to its side of the border.  

This international mobilization to prevent interstate war resulted in a shift in strategy on the part of Baku. In December 2022, the Azerbaijani government blocked the Lachin Corridor to civilian movement, under the guise of an “eco-activist” protest against the exploitation of natural resources in Nagorno-Karabakh. The blockade was also justified by persistent Azerbaijani claims that landmines and other materiel were being smuggled through the corridor. Although not independently verified, these claims were taken to substantiate the Azerbaijani charge that Armenia was not abiding by the terms of the 2020 cease-fire.

The resulting blockade was initially manageable through the continued access of the International Committee of the Red Cross, or ICRC, and Russian peacekeepers to Nagorno-Karabakh. But in June, Azerbaijan tightened its grip to exclude even ICRC and Russian access, causing severe shortages of food, fuel and medicine in the territory.

Amid growing reports of malnutrition, anemia and crippling fuel shortages in Nagorno-Karabakh and a dispute over which road should be used to provide humanitarian relief, intense behind-the-scenes diplomacy finally succeeded in enabling the arrival of a lone Russian Red Cross truck carrying food, sanitary items and blankets on Sept. 12, the first such delivery in three months. That was followed by a second on Sept. 18. Azerbaijan launched its offensive the next day.

A vital question that will be discussed for decades is whether Azerbaijan’s “one-day war” was really necessary. There is much that we still do not know about the chronology and content of secret contacts between the Karabakh Armenian leadership and Azerbaijani officials in the days and weeks prior to Sept. 19. At a minimum, it is clear that negotiations were pointing toward Azerbaijan’s desired diplomatic outcomes.

Pashinyan, Armenia’s prime minister, had repeatedly asserted Armenia’s willingness to recognize Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity. This had been reinforced by EU messaging, to the point where an EU statement in May 2023 had gone as far as to enumerate the territorial areas in square kilometers of both Armenia and Azerbaijan—29,800 and 86,600 respectively, the latter figure inclusive of Karabakh—in order to underline Azerbaijan’s undisputed sovereignty over the region.

Despite this, however, Azerbaijan maintained a nine-month blockade and staged a major military offensive that in hindsight make sense as a phased strategy to physically and psychologically weaken a civil population in advance of a major military assault, incentivizing their mass displacement through intimidation and violence; the fallacy of “voluntary departure” has consistently been used to explain away the coercive reordering of demography in the South Caucasus since the late 1980s. The totality of the exodus that followed and what some journalists on the ground reported as the resignation of the refugees to the finality of their departure indicate that it worked.        

Azerbaijan’s choice to use force against a weak and isolated opponent may be puzzling seen through the prism of the ongoing peace process, since Baku held all the cards already and diplomacy, albeit falteringly, was delivering long-sought-after commitments to Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity. Azerbaijan’s calculus makes more sense when we see the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh—and conflicts more generally—not just as a set of outcomes but as a strategy for shaping political community, agency and legitimacy.

Azerbaijan’s approach to the Karabakh conflict over the past three years will become a textbook case of authoritarian conflict management, or ACM, an approach to conflict that uses a variety of coercive methods to suppress grievances, impose stability and uphold power verticals within the state deploying it. Its spread reflects the wider decline of the liberal international order and the latter’s emphasis on negotiated settlements and peacebuilding.

ACM functions through the dominance of a single hegemonic discourse that foregrounds state actors at the expense of all others. The period since the 2020 war has been notable in Azerbaijan for the further tightening of political controls over various forms of autonomous political association, from political parties to media to religious organizations. This extended in 2023 to the scattered and atomized network of Azerbaijani peace activists critiquing Baku’s militarism, which was increasingly targeted, leading many of them to go into exile.

ACM in Azerbaijan is tied to a powerful emotional culture of resentment that is used to justify the humiliation of vanquished opponents, with a stark individualization of Azerbaijan’s military success in the person of its president, Ilham Aliyev. His recently filmed tour of Karabakh’s regional capital highlights both features, depicting Aliyev walking alone through abandoned cityscapes, clad in military fatigues and at one point stepping on the former de facto republic’s flag underfoot. Such acts of ritualized humiliation are hardly accidental. To the contrary, they lay the foundation for Aliyev’s personalized legitimacy as the icon of Azerbaijani victory.

(This is not to suggest that either side has a monopoly on humiliating the other. Few spectacles could have been guaranteed to generate similar feelings among Azerbaijanis than the sight of Pashinyan participating in a folkdance during a May 2019 visit to Nagorno-Karabakh’s previously Azerbaijani-majority city of Shusha, known as Shushi to Armenians.)

ACM in the context of Nagorno-Karabakh has two key implications for the future. One is the tension between mobilization around and social fatigue with conflict. In the years and possibly decades to come, Azerbaijani citizens will be persistently mobilized to celebrate victory, not peace. This will encumber any Azerbaijani leader seeking to transform the relationship with Armenia. At the same time, the Azerbaijani elite will need to navigate social fatigue with the continued mobilization of society around the conflict rather than other values, such as rights and participation, which for many years Azerbaijani officials have declared off-limits until the conflict was resolved.

The second key implication is that ACM does not resolve the underlying issues driving conflict, but rather embeds them in new cycles of injustice. The mass forced displacement of the Karabakh Armenians has set reconciliation back by at least a generation and probably more, and sets the stage for a new cycle of disputed claims in the future. Normative considerations will motivate discussions of rights of return, and even the symbolic return of a small number of Armenians would suit a number of geopolitical agendas. Yet these debates, for many years at least, will remain entirely divorced from realities in which the two societies are mobilized to see returnees as the illegitimate fifth column of a hostile, irredentist power.

What, then, can be expected of the Armenian-Azerbaijani peace process going forward? Azerbaijan’s military operation spelled the end of the two predominant approaches to resolving the conflict associated with outside actors: the “liberal peace” predicated on participation and co-existence advocated by the EU and the U.S., and the “frozen conflict” approach postponing solutions to an indefinite future favored by Russia.

Azerbaijan’s ascendancy instead facilitates a pathway to the realignment of the region away from being seen as a periphery of Europe or a contested European-Russian neighborhood toward becoming a regionalized space bringing local powers Turkey, Russia and, potentially, Iran into alignment around Azerbaijan as the keystone. This constellation will provide for some forms of regional cooperation and connectivity, but through a top-down regionalism that does not seek to resolve underlying fractures and which promotes illiberal norms.   

This process of “regionalization” is not new, but Azerbaijan’s military solution in Karabakh resets the terms. A project to eject the South Caucasus out of a “globalized” order regulated by liberal norms into a “regionalized” space managed by local illiberal powers has been significantly strengthened. At the same time, however, Azerbaijan has introduced two critical shifts.

First, Baku has shifted this process away from Russia’s exclusive “tutelage” toward a more diffuse constellation in which Russia is one partner among several. A significant tension for the future is the extent to which Russia can recalibrate its ideological attachment to dominance of the South Caucasus as part of “its” near abroad into a commitment to transactionalism as one stakeholder among several in a regionalized space.

Second, by incorporating Karabakh militarily, Azerbaijan has also shifted the next focus of regionalization from Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia itself. In 2020, it was the war-ending cease-fire and arrangements in Karabakh itself that drove the regionalization process. Now it is discussion over an interstate agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and the associated arrangements for transit and connectivity involving Armenia, that is doing so.  

---

---

The outlook for mediation is in many ways paradoxical. On the one hand, the core issue driving the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict has been “resolved” in the latter’s favor, suggesting that a long-awaited normalization treaty is within reach. On the other, multiple mediation tracks risk prolonging the fragmented circularity of talks. EU mediation continues, although Armenia favors key member-states and Azerbaijan the European Council as the key interlocutors. So, too, does Russian mediation. The good offices of the U.S. also continue to be accepted, while Azerbaijan has also recently welcomed a role for Georgian mediation. Azerbaijani analysts also regularly advocate for direct negotiations with Armenia, without any external “interference.”  

These expressions of what might be termed “hyper-forum shopping” are in part a structural corollary of declining multilateralism and a rising multipolar order. The result is an iteration of the “multiple principals problem,” or to put it more bluntly, that which is everybody’s business is nobody’s business. Yet forum-shopping is also a political strategy that prevents any single mediator from bringing all of the possible trade-offs into a composite bargain around one table that could provide the basis for an agreement.

The resulting protracted and performative diplomacy provides cover for the establishment of new facts on the ground. And if there is one lesson from the history of Armenian-Azerbaijani diplomacy since 1992, it is that negotiations have never reversed facts on the ground. With Karabakh militarily subdued, however, the “ground” now in question is Armenia.

There are three sets of issues framing ongoing territorial disputes between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The first is the delimitation of their international borders, which is further complicated by the legacies of skirmishes and incursions from both the 1990s and since May 2021, which mean that lines of actual control vary significantly from presumed de jure boundaries. The second is the fate of a number of small exclaves—three Azerbaijani exclaves in Armenia and one Armenian exclave in Azerbaijan—which are territorial anomalies inherited from the Soviet Union.

Finally, and most consequentially for the wider region, there remains the issue of transit across southern Armenia that would connect mainland Azerbaijan to its larger exclave Nakhchivan and beyond to Turkey. This route is referred to in Azerbaijan and Turkey as the “Zangezur Corridor” and is heavily promoted in Baku and Ankara as facilitating a Middle Corridor route as an alternative to the Northern Route running through Russia. 

A transit route across southern Armenia, under Russian supervision, is mandated by Article 9 of the 2020 Cease-fire Statement. Yet with almost all of the other arrangements mandated in that document now obsolete, it is surely a dubious basis for such an ambitious geopolitical project. Russia’s acquiescence to Azerbaijan’s military takeover of Karabakh, a striking departure from the Kremlin’s preference for “frozen conflicts” in Eurasia, is likely tied to a quid pro quo upholding Russia’s role as “guardian” of a trans-Armenian route as the sole relic the Kremlin was able to salvage from the otherwise defunct Cease-fire Statement. This reflects the reality that connectivity has become a real and urgent issue for Russia in the aftermath of the war in Ukraine.

Transit across southern Armenia as foreseen in the Cease-fire Statement consequently faces hurdles with regard to its legal credibility, as well as Armenia’s concerns that its national sovereignty be upheld and Western concerns over Russia’s ongoing role. Turkish and Azerbaijani officials have posited transit through Iran as an alternative. Though tensions between Azerbaijan and Iran have periodically flared since 2020, spiking after an attack on the Azerbaijani embassy in Tehran that killed a security official and injured two others, there has also been a consistent flow of pragmatic agreements on connectivity. Recent accords between Baku and Tehran point to the possibility of a road corridor connecting mainland Azerbaijan and Nakhchivan via Iran.

An Iranian alternative comes with other issues attached, however, namely the exclusion of Western investment in upgrading to costlier rail infrastructure due to Iran’s involvement; the ambiguous role of Russia, since unlike in Armenia there is no needfor a Russian peacekeeping presence in an Iranian-Azerbaijani connectivity arrangement; and the potential need for a wider regional platform providing a legal framework for new transit infrastructure given the number of states involved. A revival of the “3+3” platform—combining Russia, Turkey and Iran with Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, an idea circulating since 2020 without serious uptake—could serve this purpose. Different corridor projects consequently implicate different constellations, and reconfigurations, of regional power.     

Since 2020, connectivity has been virtually the sole framework for peace narratives. But connectivity breakthroughs have so far been stymied by the undiminished securitization of Armenian-Azerbaijani relations. Worst-case scenarios foresee the carving out of corridors by force. This, however, would complete the cycle of role-reversal between Armenia and Azerbaijan, establishing a new territorial politics of conquest, occupation and irredentism and foreclosing an alternative future of a reconnected South Caucasus.

Azerbaijani officials reject such scenarios. Yet with its principal goals achieved, Baku may be content to continue hedging among the region’s weakened and distracted hegemons, while consolidating new facts on the ground and protracting a negotiated settlement into an uncertain future.

Laurence Broers is an associate fellow at the Russia & Eurasia Programme at Chatham House and the author of “Armenia and Azerbaijan: Anatomy of a Rivalry” (Edinburgh University Press, 2019). 

https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/armenia-azerbaijan-nagorno-karabakh/?loggedin=1

Oct 11 2023

Oct 10 (Reuters) – Armenia's prime minister said on Tuesday that plans were proceeding for a meeting with the president of Azerbaijan to discuss a durable peace accord, after Azeri forces took control of the contested region of Nagorno-Karabakh last month.

In comments reported by Russian news agencies, Nikol Pashinyan also told Armenian television that tensions had subsided on the border between the two ex-Soviet states.

Armenia, he said, was willing to resolve outstanding issues, like opening transport corridors across each other's territory.

Pashinyan and Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev have held a series of meetings – arranged in turn by Russia, the European Union or the United States – with the aim of resolving disputes over Nagorno-Karabakh, the object of two wars in 30 years between the neighbours.

"We and Azerbaijan have both announced our readiness to hold this meeting and this will means a step towards," Pashinyan was quoted as saying. "It means that in the course of two to three months the likelihood of signing a peace treaty is 70 percent."

A top Russian security official, Nikolai Patrushev, met Aliyev in Baku, Russian news agencies reported on Tuesday.

Azerbaijan launched a lightning military operation last month to take full control of Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous region run for three decades by leaders of the ethnic Armenian population.

The territory has long been recognised as part of Azerbaijan but Armenian separatists took control of it in a war as the Soviet Union was collapsing in the 1990s.

Azeri forces recaptured stretches of territory in and around the enclave in a 2020 conflict – ended with a truce brokered by Russia – and restored full control last month. Generations of hostile relations between the two people prompted most of its 120,000 residents to flee to Armenia.

Pashinyan said earlier this year that Armenia was ready to acknowledge Azerbaijan's sovereignty over the region.

In his TV interview, Pashinyan said Armenia wanted to establish transport corridors across each country's territory – one of the other sticking points in attempts to sign a peace treaty.

"Opening up communications is in our interests," he said.

Pashinyan, who has complained that Russia has not fulfilled its obligations to help Armenia under a defence pact, also said his country saw no reason to change its relations with Moscow, including provision to keep a Russian base in Armenia.

Oct 9 2023

France could join India to arm Armenia against Azerbaijan after Russia’s failure to come through on the defense deals it signed with Yerevan.

A rattled Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev has scolded France and said its decision to send military aid to Armenia could renew violent hostilities in the South Caucasus that ceased after Azerbaijan’s swift military operation ended in September.

The strong words from the Azerbaijan President have come in the face of France promising military aid to Armenia in early October 2023. France’s show of support has been preceded by Azerbaijan declaring victory after a swiftly executed military offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh, the main bone of contention and a “frozen conflict” between the two Caucasian neighbors.

The conflict has forced the exodus of around 100,000 ethnic Armenians living in the Nagorno-Karabakh region. At the beginning of October 2023, Baku officially dissolved Nagorno-Karabakh.

“The provision of weapons by France to Armenia was an approach that was not serving peace, but one intended to inflate a new conflict, and if any new conflict occurs in the region, France would be responsible for causing it,” according to the Azerbaijani readout of a call between Aliyev and European Council President Charles Michel.

Aliyev also blamed France for his absence at a summit of the European Political Community last week in Granada, Spain, where an EU-brokered meeting with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan was arranged to boost the peace process between the two countries. The meeting aimed at preventing further escalation of conflict between the two countries.

Azerbaijan’s state-run APA news agency, citing unnamed sources, said Aliyev had decided not to go after its request to have its ally Turkey represented at the meeting was turned down. Following France and Germany’s objection, Baku felt “an anti-Azerbaijani atmosphere” had developed among the meeting’s potential participants.

The French statement about military aid to Armenia comes as Yerevan has, for some time now, sought to diversify its arms imports and find new allies after Russia failed to provide the country with ordered weapons worth around US $400 million (it has not yet returned the money).

The failed arms deal came as an additional trigger in the worsening Russia-Armenia relations, which made Armenia seek to diversify the sources of its arms imports, looking at the West and India.

France and Armenia have shared strong diplomatic ties, as the former is home to a large Armenian diaspora. In 2001, Paris was among the first Western capitals to recognize the Armenian genocide, two decades before the United States did.

So far, France has backed Armenia only politically, but there is a shift in its policy in the conflict. French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna, during her visit to Armenia’s capital Yerevan, on October 3, said: “France has given its consent to sign a future contract with Armenia, which will enable the provision of military equipment to Armenia so that Armenia can ensure its defense, it is clear that I cannot elaborate on this issue for now.”

Colonna declined to give details about the proposed aid but added that she had asked the European Union’s chief diplomat, Josep Borrell, to expand the EU mission in the region and proposed including Armenia in an EU peace mechanism similar to that implemented by the bloc in Moldova.

The European country is stepping up as Russia is bogged down in Ukraine, and the peace brokered by it has been shattered by Azerbaijan as it launched a military campaign in 2020.

In the latest conflict that erupted on September 19, Azerbaijan launched an offensive and, within 24 hours, declared victory over the separatist province of Nagorno-Karabakh. Authorities of the province have now said the ethnic Armenian enclave would dissolve on January 1, 2024.

France has also been fostering closer defense ties with India, as the latter opted to induct Rafale fighter jets both in its Air Force and Navy. Dassault Chairman and CEO Eric Trappier is in Delhi for two days to visit the details of the proposed purchase of 26 naval variants of the Rafale fighter jet for the Indian Navy.

The Indian defense minister will be concurrently on a four-day visit to Italy and France beginning October 9 to further the bilateral strategic ties with the European countries and explore joint development of military hardware.

India has diplomatic ties with both Azerbaijan and Armenia, which are geographically important for New Delhi’s connectivity with Russia and Europe through Central Asia and Iran.

In 2022, when India inked the deal to supply PINAKA multi-barrel rocket launchers (MBRL), anti-tank munitions, and ammunition worth US $250 million to Armenia, it was seen as New Delhi taking a position in the conflict. It was the first export of PINAKA by India.

Armenia opted for Pinaka MBRLs, considered at par with the American HIMARs, for its shoot and scoot capability. The mobility is an advantage as adversary Azerbaijan has been deploying drones, including suicide drones.

Armenia’s endorsement of the Indian position on Kashmir and support for New Delhi’s ambition to join the permanent seat in the expanded UN Security Council and Azerbaijan’s proximity to Pakistan has tilted the scales in favor of Armenia.

Armenia has been vocal about diversifying its defense suppliers following Russia’s recanting on its defense orders. It has also made public the negotiations with India for possible delivery of military equipment. Yerevan has shown interest in Indian drones and loitering munitions, besides mid-range surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems like the Akash.

While India has not confirmed publicly that it is supplying the Akash SAM system to Armenia, Bharat Dynamics Limited (BDL) did announce it has received export orders from a friendly country.

• Ritu Sharma has been a journalist for over a decade, writing on defense, foreign affairs, and nuclear technology.

Oct 3 2023

Following Armenia's ratification of the Rome Statute, the Kremlin has said it does not want Russian dictator Vladimir Putin to have to give up visiting an allied country.

Source: Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov on 3 October

Quote from Peskov: "Of course we would not like the president to have to cancel his visits to Armenia for any reason.

Of course we have a lot in common with the brotherly Armenian people. We have no doubt that it will unite us forever."

Details: Peskov said that Armenia's decision to ratify the Rome Statute was "incorrect".

Quote from Peskov: "There will be additional questions for the current leadership of Armenia; they were conveyed to the Armenian side in advance. We doubt, and have doubted from the very beginning, that Armenia's accession to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court is correct from the point of view of bilateral relations. We still believe that this is an incorrect decision."

Previously: The National Assembly of Armenia has passed a law ratifying the Rome Statute, the founding document of the International Criminal Court, which has issued a warrant for the arrest of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov described Armenia's decisions regarding the Rome Statute as "extremely hostile". At the same time, he said that the Armenian side had offered to conclude a bilateral agreement with Russia regarding the Rome Statute.

Background: Armenia signed the Rome Statute in 1998, but did not ratify it. The Constitutional Court of Armenia ruled in March 2023 that the Rome Statute aligns with the country's constitution.

A parliamentary committee gave a positive opinion on the ratification of the statute, and it was submitted to the plenary session at the end of September.

Yerevan has stressed the need to ratify the Statute and recognise its jurisdiction, emphasising that the risk of further military aggression against Armenia by Azerbaijan remains high, and that after ratification, Baku's war crimes will fall under the jurisdiction of the ICC.

As for Russia's concerns, Armenia's representative for international legal issues, Yeghisheh Kirakosyan, recently clarified that there is no question of Putin being arrested upon entering Armenia after the ratification of the Rome Statute, as current heads of state are granted immunity.

States that have ratified the Rome Statute are obliged to arrest Vladimir Putin in the event of his arrival in their territory under a warrant issued by the International Criminal Court in the context of Russian aggression against Ukraine.

Oct 4 2023

STRASBOURG — The European Parliament is expected to call for sanctions against Azerbaijan on Thursday over the seizure of the ethnic Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh last month, but Baku’s long lobbying reach in Europe and its crucial gas reserves mean EU countries will probably ignore the MEPs’ demand.

Azerbaijan launched a lightning strike into the breakaway territory in September, forcing 100,000 people to flee. The crisis has exposed a deep division over Europe’s attitude to the two parties. While European politicians are often willing to take Armenia’s side in symbolic appeals and expressions of concern, Azerbaijan has established more hard power, not least because the EU is increasingly turning to Caspian Sea gas as an alternative to Russia after the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine.

The situation “looks like it did with Ukraine,” said Nathalie Loiseau, a French lawmaker from the centrist Renew group and chair of the Parliament’s defense committee, one of the co-authors of the resolution supporting Armenia. “But let’s not repeat our mistakes, let’s save our honor, let’s save Armenia,” she almost yelled at a pre-vote debate on Tuesday.

Surprisingly, Loiseau won support from voices of far-right ID group — which includes MEPs who have supported Azerbaijan.

“It has to be said that the EU prefers gas to Armenian blood,” said Jordan Bardella, one of France’s rising stars on the far right.

Isabel Santos, a Portuguese MEP from the Socialists & Democrats, said the EU’s gas deal with Azerbaijan “must be suspended, displaced populations must be accommodated and efforts must be made to conclude a sustainable peace agreement,” while Željana Zovko, from the European People’s Party, called on member countries to help Armenia. Fabio Massimo Castaldo, the most senior MEP in Italy’s anti-establishment 5Star Movement, condemned “the silence, which sacrificed the Armenian population in the name of realpolitik.”

The problem for the MEPs is that the power to impose sanctions lies with EU member countries, and they look unlikely to upset Azerbaijan’s autocratic President Ilham Aliyev, who is winning the lobbying war.

Loiseau herself admitted that while her resolution, to be voted through on Thursday, is an important gesture, it won’t ultimately be effective.

“The real question is at member state level: Hungary is very close to Russia, Turkey and Azerbaijan, but there are also countries like Austria, Bulgaria and Romania that depend on Azerbaijani gas; and countries like Italy, which is hoping for operating licences for its oil company,” she told POLITICO. Meanwhile, at the top level, “the EU has gone mute” on the crisis, she blasted.

Despite a few tepid messages of concern from senior EU figures, the growing crisis is forcing Brussels to choose between its self-proclaimed values and the benefits of partnership with Azerbaijan.

Prior to the crisis, Europe was moving closer to Baku, with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen even traveling there in 2022 and hailing Azerbaijan as one of Europe’s more “reliable, trustworthy” partners. Even before Aliyev’s military assault on Nagorno-Karabakh, the EU chief’s agreement to double the purchases of Azerbaijani gas by 2027 already raised eyebrows.

An abandoned car left by fleeing Armenians on the side of a road leading to the Lachin corridor | Emmanuel Dunand/AFP via Getty Images

“Azerbaijan has huge hydrocarbon resources in the Caspian Sea, but to cover its domestic consumption, it has to import gas from Russia, so there’s a thinking in Brussels that the gas contract was a huge mistake, because it means importing some of Russia’s gas,” said Michaël Levystone, an associate researcher at the Russia-Eurasia Centre of IFRI, the French Institute of International Relations.

Gas supply from Azerbaijan’s Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) only accounts for 3.4 percent of the EU’s total imports in 2022, while Moscow still supplied up to 15 percent of the Continent’s gas demand that same year, according to a Commission spokesperson.

Azerbaijan is, however, set to play a pivotal role in Europe’s energy strategy, because of nearby Turkmenistan — which has the world’s fourth largest gas reserves. Both EU and American companies are eyeing transit infrastructure through Azerbaijan, and EU officials are holding meetings to strengthen cooperation.

Azerbaijan’s influence strategy started long before the war in Ukraine, recruiting former high-profile personalities from EU governments.

Former German government spokesman Otto Hauser was hired as an honorary consul and the Azerbaijanis secured ties with his political party, the Christian Democrats, according to an investigation by Vice. In France, former justice minister and MEP Rachida Dati has long been a vocal advocate for establishing closer ties with Baku. Azerbaijan also worked with Tony Blair, a former prime minister of the United Kingdom, to advise a BP-led consortium looking to export natural gas from Azerbaijan to Europe.

Baku has consistently invited EU lawmakers too, with some of them still acting as vocal supporters of the regime like Andris Ameriks, an MEP from Latvia in the Socialists and Democrats group, who told POLITICO he still “[supports] Azerbaijan’s integrity.”

François-Xavier Bellamy, a French conservative MEP who openly supports Armenia, said several colleagues confessed they had to withdraw their support for one of his pro-Armenia amendments because of pressure coming from their energy ministers and other colleagues. He also said he had been the target of a defamation campaign alleging he was paid by Armenia.

On the other side, Armenia is working with lobbying firm Rasmussen Global and also counting on the European Armenian community, which protested on October 1 in various capitals and is active in calling politicians to action or even putting pressure on candidates ahead of elections. But Azerbaijan’s years of lobbying and economic arguments can hardly be outweighed by the lesser resources Armenia invested in its influence strategy.

“It’s quite embarrassing for Western democracies that we have been sitting idly by while the Azeris de facto have blocked access to Nagorno-Karabakh,” said Anders Fogh Rasmussen, founding chairman of Rasmussen Global and former NATO secretary-general.

For the time being, Europe is clinging to its position as a mediator, but now has to face the fact that peace talks are nowhere near close. Azerbaijani President Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan were to meet on Thursday in the Spanish city of Granada for Western-mediated talks aimed at ending their historic enmity, but Aliyev canceled just a day before.

“The EU thought that the most important thing was to be involved in mediation, but the problem is that it has gone mute in this mediation,” said Loiseau. “Mediation does not mean being neutral between an aggressor and its victim.”

Eddy Wax and Elisa Braün reported from Strasbourg. Gabriel Gavin reported from Armenia. Sarah Wheaton reported from Brussels.

Lieber Institute West Point

Sept 29 2023

by Michael N. Schmitt, Kevin S. Coble | Sep 29, 2023

Editors’ Note: In a prior post, the authors presented background material and jus ad bellum analysis of an ongoing situation between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the Nagorno-Karabakh region. In this post, they address jus in bello and other international legal issues related to the situation.

International Armed Conflict

Armenia and Azerbaijan have been involved in a continuous “international armed conflict” almost since they declared independence. Common Article 2 of the four 1949 Geneva Conventions (to which Armenia and Azerbaijan are parties) sets forth the accepted definition of such conflicts: “declared war or of any other armed conflict which may arise between two or more [States], even if the state of war is not recognized by one of them.” It also extends the status to “all cases of partial or total occupation of the territory of a High Contracting Party, even if the said occupation meets with no armed resistance.” Thus, international armed conflict can exist because of hostilities between States or an ongoing occupation (or both).

Concerning the former, the 1960 Geneva Convention III Commentary to Common Article 2 explains:

any difference arising between two States and leading to the intervention of members of the armed forces is an armed conflict within the meaning of Article 2, even if one of the Parties denies the existence of a state of war. It makes no difference how long the conflict lasts, how much slaughter takes place, or how numerous are the participating forces.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) endorsed this interpretation, with which we agree, in its 2016 Geneva Convention I Commentary to the article (para. 237). Over the past decades, hostilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan have easily crossed the requisite intensity threshold for international armed conflict.

Yet there have been significant lulls in the fighting since 1991. This brings into play the second basis for the existence of an armed conflict – belligerent occupation. Article 42 of the Hague Regulations annexed to the 1907 Convention (IV) Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land provides, “Territory is considered occupied when it is actually placed under the authority of the hostile army. The occupation extends only to the territory where such authority has been established and can be exercised.” In other words, there is a two-part, factual test for occupation: 1) “the ousted government is incapable of publicly exercising authority in that area;” and 2) the foreign army is “in a position to substitute its own authority for that of the former government” (Benvenisti). As Yoram Dinstein has observed, “Effective control is a conditio sine qua non of belligerent occupation” (para. 136).

Admittedly, the NKR has the trappings of an independent State, including a President and Prime Minister, a National Assembly, typical ministries for, inter alia, foreign affairs, justice, and the economy, and a well-organized and equipped Defence Army. Nevertheless, it is clear that Armenian civil and military authorities have controlled Azerbaijani territory to the exclusion of Azerbaijani authority, both directly and by proxy, since 1992.

Indeed, in Chiragov v. Armenia, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights considered the matter (see also Sargsyan v.Azerbaijan and Milanovic’s discussion). The Grand Chamber discussed how the NKR is integrated into and dependent on Armenia. For example, its residents are issued Armenian passports; politicians hold, at different times, positions in both Armenia and the NKR; Armenian law-enforcement agencies operate in the territory; and Armenian courts exercise jurisdiction in it (paras. 78 and 182). Based on these and other relevant facts, it concluded that “the ‘NKR’ and its administration survive by virtue of the military, political, financial and other support given to it by Armenia which, consequently, exercises effective control over Nagorno‑Karabakh and the surrounding territories, including the district of Lachin” (para. 186).

Indeed, the international community has regularly characterized Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding area as occupied by Armenia. As noted, the UN Security Council did so in four resolutions in 1993 alone. For example, the first “[d]emand[ed] the immediate cessation of all hostilities and hostile acts with a view to establishing a durable ceasefire, as well as immediate withdrawal of all occupying forces from the Kelbadjar district and other recently occupied areas of Azerbaijan” (UNSCR 822). Like the other three, it “[r]eaffirm[ed] . . . respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity of all States in the region,” as well as “the inviolability of international borders and the inadmissibility of the use of force for the acquisition of territory.”

Even more broadly, in 2008, the UN General Assembly passed Resolution 62/243. It referenced previous resolutions and Minsk Group reports, which referred to the territory as occupied, and “demanded the immediate, complete and unconditional withdrawal of all Armenian forces from all the occupied territories of the Republic of Azerbaijan” (the United States, United Kingdom, and Russia voted against the resolution on unrelated grounds). Similarly, two years later, an OSCE Minsk Group Field Assessment Mission identified the region as the “Occupied Territories of Azerbaijan.” Even the 2020 ceasefire agreement required Armenia to “return the Kelbajar region to the Republic of Azerbaijan by November 15, 2020, and the Lachin region by December 1, 2020,” thereby confirming the authority and control Armenia exercised over the territory. There appears to be broad consensus that Armenia has long occupied Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding area. As a consequence, an international armed conflict existed throughout this period.

End of Occupation and International Armed Conflict?

Armenia claims it no longer maintains forces in the area. Yet, that does not mean it was not occupying its adversary’s territory. As Tristan Ferraro has convincingly argued, “a state [is] an occupying power for the purposes of IHL when it exercises overall control over de facto local authorities or other local organized groups that are themselves in effective control of a territory or part thereof.” In support, he points to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia Trial Chamber judgment in the Tadic case, which found that “‘the relationship of de facto organs or agents to the foreign Power includes those circumstances in which the foreign Power ‘occupies’ or operates in certain territory solely through the acts of local de facto organs or agents” (para. 584), as well several other decisions from that body and the International Court of Justice (Ferraro, p. 159). In other words, to qualify as an occupying power, a State must be in overall control of a proxy group that effectively controls the area. Although some degree of Armenia’s control over the occupied territory was lost in 2020, enough survived to meet the requisite tests (see also Vité p. 74-75). Thus, NKR’s “governance” preceding the recent round of fighting affected neither the fact of occupation nor the existence of the Armenia-Azerbaijan international armed conflict.

However, depending on how the facts on the ground unfold, the occupation may be coming to an end. Once Azerbaijan supplants NKR authority, the requisite NKR effective control will be absent, as will Armenian overallcontrol. Of course, as Yoram Dinstein has cautioned, “A definitive close of the occupation can only follow upon a durable shift of effective control in the territory from the Occupying Power to the restored sovereign” (para. 832). But it appears that shift might be underway.

As to the ceasefire, it has no bearing on the existence of the ongoing international armed conflict. As one of us previously explained, “ceasefires” suspend hostilities, “armistices” end the armed conflict, and “peace treaties” restore peaceful relations between the belligerents (see also Dinstein p. 36-64). Azerbaijan and Armenia had only entered into ceasefire agreements in the past, thereby temporarily halting hostilities. And because Armenia is not a party to the current agreement, it is but an agreement between Azerbaijan and proxy forces in the field (ceasefires are typically between fielded forces). Hopefully, the parties will move towards an armistice agreement or even a peace treaty. Still, for now, Armenia and Azerbaijan remain parties to an international armed conflict (on the separate issue of when the application of IHL ends, see Milanovic).

Humanitarian Assistance

Azerbaijan’s interference with the Lachin corridor, the only supply route from Armenia to Nagorno-Karabakh, raises additional legal issues regarding humanitarian assistance (see Pejic). The relevant rules are found in the Geneva Conventions, especially Geneva Convention IV on the protection of civilians, and customary international law. Although the 1977 Additional Protocol (I) to the Geneva Conventions also addresses humanitarian assistance (arts. 68-71), it is inapplicable here since Azerbaijan is not a party.

Under IHL, the party in whose power civilians and other protected persons find themselves is responsible for satisfying their basic needs. In this regard, Article 55 of Geneva Convention IV provides that “[t]o the fullest extent of the means available to it, the Occupying Power has the duty of ensuring the food and medical supplies of the population; it should, in particular, bring in the necessary foodstuffs, medical stores and other articles if the resources of the occupied territory are inadequate.” It, therefore, fell to Armenia and its NKR proxy to care for the population of the occupied territory.

Should an occupying power be unable to supply the population with the necessary assistance, it must, under Article 59 of Geneva Convention IV, “agree to relief schemes on behalf of the said population, and . . . facilitate them by all the means at its disposal.” Further, Article 10 emphasizes the right of humanitarian organizations to provide assistance:

The provisions of the present Convention constitute no obstacle to the humanitarian activities which the International Committee of the Red Cross or any other impartial humanitarian organization may, subject to the consent of the Parties to the conflict concerned, undertake for the protection of civilian persons and for their relief.

Armenia had complied with this obligation by allowing the delivery of assistance into occupied areas through the Lachin corridor.

This raises Azerbaijan’s responsibility. By Article 59,

All Contracting Parties shall permit these consignments’ free passage and guarantee their protection.

A Power granting free passage to consignments on their way to territory occupied by an adverse Party to the conflict shall, however, have the right to search the consignments, to regulate their passage according to prescribed times and routes, and to be reasonably satisfied through the Protecting Power that these consignments are to be used for the relief of the needy population and are not to be used for the benefit of the Occupying Power.

The ICRC contends that this is a customary law obligation, reflected in Rule 55 of its Customary International Humanitarian Law study: “The parties to the conflict must allow and facilitate rapid and unimpeded passage of humanitarian relief for civilians in need, which is impartial in character and conducted without any adverse distinction, subject to their right of control.” We agree.

Therefore, the question is whether Azerbaijan’s actions were justified based on its right of control. In this regard, the 1958 Commentary to Article 59 provides, “The State granting free passage to consignments can check them in order to satisfy itself that they do in fact consist of relief supplies and do not contain weapons, munitions, military equipment or other articles or supplies used for military purposes.” While the State is entitled to prescribe routes and timing consistent to address security concerns, any decision that limits qualifying humanitarian assistance must not be “arbitrary” (see Pejic).

Although Azerbaijan asserts that security reasons justified interference with transit through the Lachin corridor, the claim is not credible, at least not in light of the extent to which the humanitarian assistance was blocked. For instance, Azerbaijan’s involvement in the protests blocking the Lachin corridor is at issue in an ongoing International Court of Justice case brought by Armenia alleging violations of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD). The court has noted that “restrictions on the importation and purchase of goods required for humanitarian needs, such as foodstuffs and medicines, including lifesaving medicines, treatment for chronic disease or preventive care, and medical equipment may have a serious detrimental impact on the health and lives of individuals” (para. 55). Accordingly, in February 2023, it ordered Azerbaijan to “take all measures at its disposal to ensure unimpeded movement of persons, vehicles and cargo along the Lachin Corridor in both directions.” (para. 67).

Although this ruling was based on Azerbaijan’s CERD and 2020 ceasefire obligations, the logic applies equally to the IHL obligations set forth above. It seems clear that Azerbaijan has violated the order (reaffirmed in July) and its humanitarian assistance obligations under IHL. Fortunately, aid, including from the ICRC, is beginning to trickle in.

Breach of Ceasefire

Azerbaijan’s failures to abide by the 2020 ceasefire agreement’s terms regarding transit through the Lachin corridor and suspension of hostilities amount to “material breaches” of the agreement, which are defined by the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties as “violation of a provision essential to the accomplishment of the object or purpose of the treaty” (art. 60(3)). The law governing material breaches of a ceasefire is found in the Regulations annexed to the 1907 Hague Convention IV (the treaty uses the term “armistice” to refer to what is today labeled a “ceasefire”). They reflect customary international law.

Article 36 of the Hague Regulations provides that parties to a ceasefire may resume their operations despite the ceasefire so long as they provide advance notice to the adversary (see also Dinstein paras. 171-75). There is no indication that Azerbaijan did so either before it interfered with the Lachin corridor or launched its current operations.

Article 40 provides the remedy for such breaches: “Any serious violation of the armistice by one of the parties gives the other party the right of denouncing it, and even, in cases of urgency, of recommencing hostilities immediately.” Accordingly, Armenia could have denounced the agreement when Azerbaijan violated it by impeding traffic in the Lachin corridor. It elected not to do so. And concerning the most recent hostilities, Armenia could likewise have denounced the ceasefire and resumed hostilities. It has not availed itself of that remedy, and it is difficult to see how it might make out a case for reparations under the law of State responsibility on the basis of injury suffered (see Articles on State Responsibility, arts. 31 and 34).

Amnesty

The 20 September ceasefire between Azerbaijan and the NKR provides for demilitarization of the latter’s forces. That appears to be underway, and there are reports that Azerbaijan is considering amnesty for members of those forces who voluntarily put down their arms. Generally, combatants enjoy belligerent immunity from prosecution for actions during an armed conflict that comply with IHL and do not require a separate grant of amnesty. This raises the question as to why one might be necessary here.

NKR soldiers satisfy the conditions for combatant status articulated in Article 4(A)(2) of Geneva Convention III on prisoners of war – being commanded by a person responsible for subordinates, having a distinctive sign or emblem like a uniform, carrying weapons openly, and conducting operations in accordance with the law of war. However, most members of the NKR forces are nationals of Azerbaijan. This precludes them from claiming belligerent immunity for participating in the conflict because, as the DoD Law of War Manual notes, “international law does not prevent a State from punishing its nationals whom it may capture among the ranks of enemy forces” (§ 4.4.4.2). Although there is a debate as to whether nationals of a detaining State are entitled to prisoner of war status (Biggerstaff/Schmitt here and here arguing against such status), the ICRC 2020 Commentary to Article 4 is in accord on the matter of belligerent immunity (para. 972). Thus, without Azerbaijan’s agreement to amnesty, NKR soldiers who hold Azerbaijani nationality will be at risk of prosecution in Azerbaijani courts for violations of that State’s domestic law (especially treason). To infuse stability into the crisis, therefore, Secretary of State Blinken has urged Azerbaijan to grant amnesty broadly.

Other Bodies of Law

Former ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo has labeled the current situation a genocide (see his earlier report here). Similarly, in a 22 September statement to the Security Council, the Armenian Minister of Foreign Affairs charged, “The intensity and cruelty of the offensive makes it clear that the intention is to finalize ethnic cleansing of the Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh . . . . [W]e have a situation where there is not an intent anymore, but clear and irrefutable evidences of policy of ethnic cleansing and mass atrocities.” Armenia’s Prime Minister similarly has observed, “I consider strange Azerbaijan’s statement that they will leave a humanitarian corridor for the civilian population to leave Nagorno Karabakh. This is a direct act of ethnic cleansing.” Whether Azerbaijan’s authorities are committing genocide, crimes against humanity, or war crimes is fact-dependent and beyond the scope of this post. Nevertheless, in light of past abuses, the international community’s attention must remain firmly fixed on issues of international criminal law as the situation unfolds.

Similarly, tens of thousands of Nagorno-Karabakh residents are fleeing to Armenia and beyond. This implicates refugee law, such as that outlined in the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol. According to Article 1 of the Convention, a refugee is, inter alia, a person who:

owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it.

Accordingly, ethnic Armenians holding Azerbaijani nationality who flee Nagorno-Karabakh will be entitled to treatment as refugees by those countries to which they travel (see Grignon).

Finally, Azerbaijan owes international human rights obligations, such as respecting and protecting the right to life, to all individuals on its territory, irrespective of nationality. Human rights obligations are subject to the condition of feasibility in the circumstances. Now that Azerbaijan controls the territory previously occupied by Armenia and its proxy government, its international human rights law duties loom large. The international community is accordingly ratcheting up pressure on Azerbaijan to “uphold its obligations to respect the human rights and fundamental freedoms of the residents of Nagorno-Karabakh and to ensure its forces comply with international humanitarian law” (see, e.g., comments by U.S. Secretary of State Blinken).

Concluding Thoughts

This is not a simple case, legally or factually. And it is one in which, over the decades, there has been legal and moral blood on the hands of both parties and their proxy forces. We want to reemphasize that the discussion above is but a bird’s eye view of select issues. All are more nuanced than possible to explore here.

Moreover, the situation on the ground is evolving rapidly. In light of the risks the crisis poses to the affected civilian population and to regional and international instability (especially in light of Russia’s involvement), the international community must guard against allowing its attention to be distracted.

***

Michael N. Schmitt is the G. Norman Lieber Distinguished Scholar at the United States Military Academy at West Point. He is also Professor of Public International Law at the University of Reading and Professor Emeritus and Charles H. Stockton Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence at the United States Naval War College.

Major Kevin S. Coble is an active-duty Army judge advocate and a military professor in the Stockton Center for International Law in Newport, Rhode Island.

https://thegovernmentrag.com/articles/another-armenian-ancestral-homeland-lost-crisis-continues/