THE HAGUE, Netherlands –
A human rights organization representing ethnic Armenians presented evidence to the International Criminal Court on Thursday, arguing that Azerbaijan is committing ongoing genocide against them.
Azerbaijan’s government did not immediately comment on the allegations. The neighboring countries have been at odds for decades over Karabakh territory and are already clashing in a separate legal case stemming from that conflict.
Lawyers at the California-based Center for Truth and Justice (CFTJ) say there is enough evidence to open a formal investigation into Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev and other senior leaders for genocide. They have filed a so-called Article 15 submission urging the court’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, to investigate the alleged atrocities.
Khan’s office will now consider the evidence presented and determine whether the court will open an investigation, a decision that is expected to take months.
“My goal here is to get the highest bodies that protect human rights to take some action, not just words,” Lala Abgaryan, whose sister Gayane was killed by Azerbaijani soldiers in 2022, told The Associated Press.
Her sister’s body was severely mutilated and images of the abuse spread on the Internet. Abgaryan says the images were so atrocious that she suffered psychological damage after watching them.
Long-standing tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan erupted in 2020 in a war over Karabakh that left more than 6,600 people dead. The region is within Azerbaijan, but had been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces since the end of a separatist war in 1994.
Last year, after a lightning military campaign, Azerbaijan retook the disputed territory. After Azerbaijan regained full control of Karabakh, which had a population of around 120,000, more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians from the region fled, although Azerbaijan said they were welcome to stay and promised that their human rights would be guaranteed.
Before Azerbaijan’s offensive, Armenia and former International Criminal Court chief prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo accused Azerbaijan of committing genocide by creating conditions aimed at destroying Karabakh Armenians as a group.
Ethnic Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh sit with their belongings near a tent camp after arriving in Goris, Syunik region, Armenia. (Vasily Krestyaninoc/AP Photo)
A group of about 30 people gathered in the rain outside the court in The Hague on Thursday to hand over more than 100 pages of documents.
The human rights organization said it has presented a dossier of evidence containing the testimony of more than 500 victims and witnesses.
“These atrocities are captured on social media by the Azerbaijani soldiers themselves, where they can be heard laughing, making comments and holding the corpses they have just massacred and beheaded,” CFTJ leader Gassia Apkaria told the AP.
Legal experts say genocide may be beyond the court’s reach. Armenia is a member of the ICC, but Azerbaijan is not, leaving prosecutors with jurisdiction only over crimes committed on Armenian territory. Karabakh is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan.
However, forcing almost the entire population to move to Armenia could be within the jurisdiction of the court. Deportation is considered a crime against humanity. While Azerbaijan did not deport people who fled last year, they did so under duress.
“There’s no way this was a fluke exodus,” says Mel O’Brien, an associate professor of international law at the University of Western Australia and an expert on genocide.
The court has pressed ahead with an investigation in similar circumstances into possible crimes committed by Myanmar against the Rohingya minority group. While Myanmar is not a member state, neighboring Bangladesh is and around 750,000 people have fled across the border after being forced from their homes.
The CFTJ’s request came amid two weeks of proceedings between Armenia and Azerbaijan at another global court in The Hague. The United Nations’ highest court, the International Court of Justice, is hearing arguments related to a pair of cases arising from the conflict. Each country has accused the other of violating a treaty on racial discrimination.
Associated Press writer Jim Heintz in Tallinn, Estonia, contributed to this report.