International Court Orders Armenia and Azerbaijan to Curb Racial Hatred

On October 15, about a month after Armenia filed its suit with the ICJ, Azerbaijani news website Mikroskop reported that models depicting Armenian soldiers using stereotyped facial features, as well as a display of helmets purportedly from Armenian soldiers killed during the war, had been removed from the park. A park official told Mikroskop that the removal was only temporary, for repairs.

But Azerbaijan’s lawyers at the ICJ said that the removal was in fact permanent.

“[T]he Court takes full cognizance of the representation made by the Agent of Azerbaijan during the oral proceedings regarding these exhibits, namely that mannequins depicting Armenian soldiers and displays of helmets allegedly worn by Armenian soldiers during the 2020 Conflict have been permanently removed from the park and will not be shown in the future,” the court wrote in its ruling. The court was shown two letters from the director of the park which reportedly indicated that “[t]he mannequins and helmets will not be displayed at the Military Trophy Park or the Memorial Complex/Museum in the future.”

On the issue of the mine maps, the court also ruled that Armenia’s actions or inactions vis-à-vis planting land mines did not fall under the CERD’s remit.

“The claims relating to rights/obligations deemed not plausible under CERD at this phase (POW release, landmine removal) remain part of the case but face a (very) uphill battle going forward,” tweeted Mike Becker, an international lawyer at Trinity College, Dublin.

Also deemed plausible by the court were Azerbaijan’s claims with respect to “Armenia’s failure to condemn the activities within its territory of groups that, according to Azerbaijan, are armed ethnonationalist hate groups that incite violence against ethnic Azerbaijanis.” In its complaint, Azerbaijan had singled out one particular group, the paramilitary organization VoMA.

“The big take-home for Armenia is the protection of cultural sites. No big take-home for Azerbaijan, but it did get the order on Armenia to prevent racial hate speech in its territory,” tweeted another human rights lawyer, Gabriel Armas-Cardona of the University of Leipzig. “This was always going to be hard for Azerbaijan. CERD is an old-school territory-based human rights treaty. Now that Armenia doesn’t control any territory in dispute, Azerbaijan doesn’t have much it can claim under CERD,” he added.

“We are really happy with the court’s decision,” Sheila Paylan, an international law expert who advised the Armenian side in the lawsuit, told Eurasianet. “Even though they didn’t specifically order the release of the [prisoners of war], a large majority of the judges affirmed that their rights need to be preserved and that there is cause for concern.”

In the longer term, however, the roughly parallel rulings could benefit Azerbaijan, said Kamal Makili-Aliyev, an international lawyer at Malmö University. Makili-Aliyev has argued that Armenia’s case could have implications, under the emerging “responsibility to protect” doctrine, for the Armenian side’s efforts to gain international recognition for Nagorno-Karabakh, the territory at the heart of the conflict between the two sides.

The recent ruling makes that less likely, he told Eurasianet.

“The court acknowledged that there is a possibility that CERD was violated by both parties,” he said. “This weakens the Armenian hand somewhat, because ‘responsibility to protect’ is policy (not law) and relies on higher moral claims. If Armenia is also found to be in breach of the CERD, its moral claims are substantially diminished.”

With additional reporting by Ani Mejlumyan. Originally published by Eurasianet.org