On September 19, the Office of the Representative of the Republic of Armenia on International Legal Affairs submitted to the International Court of Justice on September 19, on behalf of Armenia, evidence of continuous violations of the decision of the court on the application of an interim measure of December 7, 2021 in the “Armenia v. Azerbaijan” case, presenting evidence of Azerbaijan’s violence against Armenian prisoners of war and killed Armenians, and information on the defilement of servicemen.
The guest of Aravot’s “Areresum (Confrontation)” program, former employee of the ECHR staff, lawyer Arman Zrvandyan, responding to the observation that in fact these decisions do not have a deterrent effect, specifically said, “The International Court has no police and enforcers to enforce its own decision on interim measures. Violations will then be taken into account by the court in sentencing. The ECHR does the same.”
Experts of international law agree that Armenia, which is in a state of war and has been attacked, should use all possible legal means. So far, one application has been submitted to the International Court of Justice and one to the European Court of Human Rights. However, it is suggested to launch other international mechanisms as well, for example, to initiate a visit to the borders of the rapporteur on special issues in the UN Human Rights Council.
Lawyer Ara Ghazaryan, an expert on human rights issues, believes that the legal processes are proceeding quite effectively. “Both courts are being used. As for the examples mentioned, there is not much the government can do. For example, it would be more effective to work with monitoring groups to appear impartial and civil society does and is doing fact-finding by many private groups. The authorities of Armenia have never been so active in international courts. This is an exceptional thing, I have not seen such activity,” said Arman Zrvandyan.
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Kristine Grigoryan, Human Rights Defender of the Armenia, informed that the video of the tortured body of the tortured soldier’s wife, subjected to professional medical analysis, has already been sent to the relevant structures of the UN and the Council of Europe. However, do these and other military crimes of Azerbaijan receive an adequate response and clear legal evaluations from the international community? They were absent in the past 2 years after the 44-day war, and that is also the reason why Azerbaijan continues the same script. Arman Zrvandyan said that the reactions of the international community and institutions are not so interesting for him. “Suppose an assessment and a call were made – it is an event of no consequence. I note the importance of the implementation of criminal mechanisms… But today I do not see activity within criminal processes. The first is the universal jurisdiction enforcement mechanisms we can put in place. I don’t know if we do or we don’t. For example, have we identified and sent extradition or conviction requests to different countries?” He added that in that case the given war criminals will have a problem leaving the country.
The former Human Rights Defender of Armenia Arman Tatoyan stressed, “I met with high-ranking representatives of the international community, gave reports, they told me that we did not know about these facts. They told me: can you pass these facts on to your authorities… I passed them on, in many cases there was no chance to be sure a second time, but when I analyze the actions, I understand that they did not learn about the specific facts.”
In response to the question are there any gaps in the work in this regard, Ara Ghazaryan said. “Maybe, I can’t confirm. In my opinion, what has happened so far has been spread sufficiently. If there are obstacles, they are objective in nature. Perhaps one can only blame that Azerbaijan had and has greater lobbying opportunities than Armenia, but it depends primarily on finances, I think. Maybe there are other factors. But when you compare the positions of Armenia and Azerbaijan in cases of armed conflict in the ECHR, that sign of equality has long been deviated in favor of Armenia.”
During the conversation, it was important to create an opportunity to recognize the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (The Hague Court) to bring the President of Azerbaijan to criminal responsibility.
“If we were to ratify the ICJ charter, it would be a layer of security for us,” remarked Arman Zrvandyan. Although Ara Ghazaryan emphasized, “If we accept the court’s jurisdiction in a specific situation, doesn’t it mean that we also accept the court’s procedure, or in some cases we agree that the ICC itself will administer justice inside Armenia instead of our courts? It contradicts our Constitution. Only Armenian courts can administer justice on the territory of Armenia.”
Anna ISRAELYAN
