In the wake of the most recent carnage in the South Caucasus, the West is becoming susceptible to consciously filling a vacuum left by Russia, a former regional arbiter who is lately distracted elsewhere. That’s good, but now the West wants to take concrete action and call a spade a spade. Any possible peace without justice is unlikely to be maintained.
The clash between Azerbaijan and Armenia provides one of the most frustrating cases of “both sides” in the world. Azerbaijan attacks, then plays the immortalized sleight of hand through the TV screen X-Files: deception, invective and darkness. The media, thin on the ground, lazily report that clashes have “broken out” and that the parties have blamed each other; The participation is from tribes that argue ridiculously, none of which can be innocent.
Fortunately, in this case, French and American officials at least were not entirely fooled, as President Emmanuel Macron, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), and others, despite everything, made it clear that Azerbaijan was to blame. Specifically, Baku forces introduced fatal cross-border attacks deep inside Armenian territory on September 13 and 14, resulting in a slew of deaths, thousands of displacements, and blatant war crimes.
In recent days, Azerbaijan’s Telegram channels have broadcast a video showing the execution, at point-blank range, of at least six unarmed Armenian prisoners of war by Azerbaijani forces, likely from the September invasion. The video sparked widespread horror and condemnation, adding via the U. S. State Department. The US government, the French Foreign Office, the UK embassy and the EU External Action Service, all of which called on the Azerbaijani government to investigate the killings.
The EU and the global network will have to do much more.
The Prosecutor General of Azerbaijan has promised to investigate. But for it to be meaningful, an investigation will have to be impartial, and the concept that this is happening in Azerbaijan is absurd.
Countless cases of torture, maiming, beheading and killing of Armenian civilians and prisoners of war have emerged since Turkish-backed Azerbaijan introduced a brutal war two years ago in the autonomous and indigenous Armenian region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Azerbaijan also called for action at that time. Some others were arrested, but there was no trial or conviction. At least one of the arrested foot soldiers recently won a medal for his military service.
Any confusion about the nature of the hypocritical and dictatorial regime of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev is only meant to remind Ramil Safarov, who in 2004 sentenced Hungary to life imprisonment for stabbing an Armenian in his sleep. Eight years later, he was extradited to Azerbaijan to serve the remainder of his sentence, after which the government pardoned him and declared him a national hero.
Indeed, so-called “Armenianphobia” is a fashionable phenomenon and even a state policy in Azerbaijan, with public figures and government officials inciting ethnic hatred against Armenians, as the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination recently observed.
Azerbaijan will not investigate its crimes any more than Russia will pursue its crimes in Ukraine. And the foreign network goes through the masquerade of asking for such a thing. Instead, less than 3 weeks after the Russian invasion, the United Nations established the International Independent. Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine to investigate war crimes and human rights violations.
This is unusual. Last year, the EU spearheaded the creation of the UN International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia in reaction to the deteriorating scenario in Tigray. Lately, the UN administers more than a dozen foreign investigation or accountability mechanisms, adding up to Syria, Myanmar, Libya and other locations.
The United Nations can also put pressure on States in conflict peacefully and respect human rights through the application of individual and multilateral sanctions, such as economic and industrial sanctions, as well as arms embargoes, travel bans and monetary or diplomatic restrictions. Lately, the UN has 14 sanctions regimes in place, adding for North Korea, Somalia, Mali and others.
So why for Azerbaijan?
On October 6, peace talks began in Prague between the leaders of Armenia, Azerbaijan, France and the EU, and the next day the EU announced that it would send a civilian project to Armenia for two months to help demarcate its borders with Azerbaijan. There are no valid disputes over the border, but it is also clear that Azerbaijan will forcibly make the territorial gains it recorded in 2020 bigger.
Primarily, it seeks an extraterritorial room to its non-contiguous domain of Nakhichevan through Armenia. Aliyev has already threatened to capture this “Zangezur room” by force if Armenia does not freely cede it to him, noting that “the other Azerbaijanis return to Zangezur, who were taken from us 101 years ago. “Nor did he hide his confidence that the precept of “the most powerful is the law” took precedence over the rule of law.
Such warmongering would possibly be wavering in the face of concrete mechanisms of deterrence or responsibility. Indeed, the mere risk of sanctions against Azerbaijan, which values its prestige as an energy exporter, would possibly be enough to impose more non-violent behaviour. And the risk of prosecution would decrease more atrocities.
On the other hand, the absence of consequences for Azerbaijan’s aggression not only further encourages it, but also threatens to invalidate any imaginable agreement aimed at achieving lasting peace. Under foreign law, a treaty is void if it was imposed through risk or use of force. But with two years of peace talks marred by repeated attacks, armed invasions and unpunished war crimes, Armenia is negotiating with a gun to its head.
Had the United Nations investigated or punished the crimes committed in the Nagorny Karabakh war, Azerbaijan might not have been free to provoke invasions and commit crimes that had long been considered prohibited under foreign law. More attacks and more war crimes. The long-term global order no longer depends only on Ukraine, but also on Armenia.
Sheila Paylan is a foreign criminal lawyer and human rights expert with over 15 years of experience advising the United Nations. She consults for a variety of foreign organizations, NGOs, think tanks and governments.
The perspectives expressed in this article are those of the author.
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