NEW YORK — The UN Committee Against Torture released in its findings on May 10 violations of international humanitarian law and human rights law related to the treatment of ethnic or national Armenians by Azerbaijan, which was deemed as “totally unacceptable.”
The Committee monitors states’ compliance with the 1984 Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. If it determines that a State is not meeting its legal obligations, it will issue suggestions and recommendations to the State to achieve compliance. Its previous review of Azerbaijan took place in 2015.
Civil society groups had the right to make written submissions to the Committee, and present orally to the Committee at the U.N. Palais Wilson in Geneva on April 22. The
In its Concluding Observations (paras. 22-25), the Committee made significant and targeted findings against Azerbaijan’s conduct towards ethnic Armenians.
Perhaps most importantly, referring to the “conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh,” the Committee expressed its “deep concern regarding [Azerbaijan’s] conduct of what it describes as anti-terrorism operations,” in other words the military action by which Azerbaijan ethnically cleansed Nagorno-Karabakh on September 19-20, 2023. The Committee’s concern extended to “the continued detention of what [Azerbaijan] describes as 23 individuals in connection with terrorism,” referring to the detained former Nagorno-Karabakh leaders.
In a public statement, the UN Committee noted that it was “alarmed by alleged extra-judicial killings, torture, and ill-treatment of national and ethnic Armenians during armed conflict and anti-terrorism operations, and the perceived lack of investigations and prosecutions of these allegations.”
