The decision of the International Court of Justice of the United Nations to apply temporary measures against Azerbaijan is binding. This means, from the moment of the decision, Azerbaijan must take steps to ensure the uninterrupted both-sided movement of citizens, vehicles, and cargo through the Lachin Corridor. The Court did not set a deadline, which means that the decision is subject to immediate execution. Despite this, Azerbaijan still keeps the corridor closed. According to the representative of Armenia on international legal matters, it is necessary to be consistent with all possible levers that Azerbaijan fulfills the decision of the Hague Court.
Yeghishe Kirakosyan (Armenia’s representative on international legal matters) - The entire process is political, the body that bears some responsibility for ensuring the execution of judgments and decisions of the Hague Court is the Security Council. Whenever a problem arises, the issue becomes problematic, it will have the right to intervene.
Yeghishe Kirakosyan considers the statements of the Foreign Ministries of different countries and the Secretary General of the United Nations, which refer to the decision of the International Court of Justice, as positive.
Yeghishe Kirakosyan - It is necessary to strengthen the pressure in this direction. This is the only way, it is good, the decision is important, it records the circumstance, it is important, because from a legal and political point of view, apart from the trilateral statement, there is another mandatory legal document that formulates the circumstance of uninterrupted passage through Lachin, Azerbaijan's obligation to ensure it.
On January 30 and 31, procedural hearings between Armenia and Azerbaijan took place in The Hague. Armenia demanded that Azerbaijan end its support for eco-activist demonstrations that are disrupting two-way traffic through the Lachin Corridor, guarantee uninterrupted communications and not obstruct the supply of natural gas and other public services to Nagorno-Karabakh. On February 22, the International Court of Justice of the United Nations satisfied the main demands of Armenia, obliging Azerbaijan to take measures to restore free movement in Lachin.
According to the representative of international legal matters, during the examination of the full complaint against Azerbaijan at the Hague Court, Armenia will also present the evidence of Azerbaijan's disregard of the Court's decision to apply a temporary measure regarding the unblocking of the Lachin Corridor. The International Court of Justice of the United Nations may establish a three-judge committee to monitor the implementation of decisions.
Yeghishe Kirakosyan - The Court had such a practice, closely followed the behavior of the states. A fact-finding mission may come; work must be done. The three-judge committee is a new phenomenon in the functioning of the Court.
The demand of the Armenian side regarding the suspension of natural gas and electricity supply was not met. The court considered that sufficient evidence was not presented. Yeghishe Kirakosyan emphasized that they are working in that direction. Unless a new motion for a temporary injunction is filed, the evidence will be used in the general hearing of the case. And in the European Court, Armenia has 4 complaints against Azerbaijan: the 44-day war of 2020, the illegal trials of captured persons, the presence of the Azerbaijani armed forces in the sovereign territory of Armenia, the resulting human rights violations, which also includes the scandalous case of the shooting of Armenian servicemen. The 4th complaint refers to the incidents of Parukh, Karaglukh in 2022, gas outages in Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) and Lachin Corridor. As for the illegal Azerbaijani legal actions against the 33 captured persons, according to Kirakosyan, they were staged in advance to justify keeping the Armenian servicemen in Azerbaijan for a certain period of time.
Yeghishe Kirakosyan - Maximum efforts have been made, now we have nothing more to do, if there are new evidences, we will naturally present them to the court. There are also cases of enforced disappearances, and with these cases, the issue is raised at different levels: at the ECHR, at The Hague Court, the work continues.
Baku continues to fail to comply with the judgments of the ECHR in a number of cases of tortured and murdered Armenians. Yeghishe Kirakosyan raised the issue for the last time in Strasbourg in December 2022 at the Department of the Execution of Decisions of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe.
