By Mark Dovich
The Center for Truth and Justice, a U.S.-based nonprofit, has formally asked the International Criminal Court to investigate Azerbaijan’s leaders for genocide, marking the first such petition to the Hague tribunal since Armenia joined earlier this year.
In a more than 100-page submission, CFTJ “outlines the vast array of atrocities carried out” by Azerbaijan within Armenia’s internationally recognized borders since it first began occupying swaths of the country nearly three years ago, the organization said in a press release Thursday.
Members of the Armenian community in the Netherlands gather Thursday in The Hague to show their support for CFTJ’s petition to the ICC.
To that end, CFTJ is now asking the ICC to open a preliminary examination of that evidence “to evaluate whether there is a reasonable basis for a formal investigation of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and others accused of planning, inciting, ordering, and executing a state policy of genocide against Armenians.”
“Unfortuntately, almost a week away from April 24, we’re here to say that once again, the Armenians…are going through a genocide. It’s an ongoing genocide,” Gassia Apkarian, a California judge and CFTJ advisor, said at a press conference in front of the ICC Thursday, referring to Armenian genocide remembrance day.
Gassia Apkarian, a California judge and CFTJ advisor, right, speaks at a press conference Thursday in The Hague, alongside Lala Abgaryan, whose sister, Gayane, was killed by Azerbaijani soldiers in 2022.
She continued: “For the first time ever in Armenians’ history, we’re asking a court to actually take steps in order to stop the ongoing, illegal occupation, the forcible deportations, the beheadings, the false imprisonment, the attacking and targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure within the borders of Armenia.”
There was no timeline made immediately available for the ICC to examine the petition by CFTJ, which was founded in the immediate aftermath of the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war and gathers firsthand testimonial evidence of alleged atrocities.
In a series of offensives and incursions in 2021 and 2022, Azerbaijani forces moved to occupy swaths of Armenian territory, taking control of at least 83 square miles of land, CivilNet has estimated.
What’s the context?
Armenia joined the ICC this year with an eye to taking Azerbaijan’s leadership to court over what it says are grave human rights abuses. That came in defiance of repeated and unusually strong warnings from the Kremlin about joining the tribunal, which issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin last year for alleged war crimes in Ukraine.
Last year, the ICC’s former chief prosecutor said he had a “reasonable basis to believe” Azerbaijan’s 2023 blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh, which ended with the country’s forceful takeover the region and the resulting mass exodus of Armenians, constituted an act of genocide.
The ICC is separate from the International Court of Justice, which is also based in The Hague and is hosting public hearings this week in a case Armenia brought against Azerbaijan alleging violations of a racial discrimination prevention treaty. The ICC tries individuals, while the ICJ settles disputes between countries.
Read more: Armenia v. Azerbaijan case begins at UN’s top court
Speaking on Tuesday before the ICJ, Armenia’s representative accused Azerbaijan of promoting hatred of Armenians at the official level, a policy he said reached a climax in Azerbaijan’s military capture of Nagorno-Karabakh last September.
“Azerbaijan has not done anything to ensure that those who wish to return to their homeland safely after these events are able to do so,” added Yeghishe Kirakosyan, who referred to the mass exodus of Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh as an act of “ethnic cleansing.”
CFTJ evidence was also brought in that case, the organization told CivilNet Thursday.
Next week, CFTJ representatives are set to go to Geneva to present violations of Azerbaijan’s commitments under the UN Convention Against Torture.
