Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians threaten to sue Armenian government if international lawsuits are dropped

A number of Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians, including former Nagorno-Karabakh State Minister Artak Beglaryan, have warned that if the Armenian government withdraws its international lawsuits against Azerbaijan, they will sue the government and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan for violating their rights.

On 13 March, Armenia and Azerbaijan separately announced that they had agreed on the terms of a historic peace deal, after over three decades of bitter conflict.

That day, an unnamed Western official with knowledge of the topic told OC Media that the agreement included major concessions from Armenia, including the dropping of lawsuits in international venues.

Since the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War, Armenia has filed four interstate complaints against Azerbaijan in the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). They include violations of the rights of illegally detained and convicted persons in Azerbaijan and the enforced displacement of the population of Nagorno-Karabakh by Azerbaijan.

In turn, a separate complaint is being considered in the UN’s International Court of Justice.

According to Beglaryan, the authorities should take into account that lawsuits are also likely to be filed against Armenia in turn, even if they drop the cases against Azerbaijan. He also warned that it was likely Aliyev would not sign the agreed peace deal.

‘Aliyev wants everything, including a non-viable Republic of Armenia and a continued policy of Armenophobia, without making any commitments. Aliyev has so far received many serious concessions (including [Nagorno-Karabakh]) without giving anything in return’, Beglaryan wrote on Facebook.

‘I warn the Armenian authorities, and especially the main decision-maker Nikol Pashinyan, that in case of refusing to file lawsuits in international instances, many Armenians, including me, will sue the Armenian authorities in the same international instances for violating our rights. Moreover, we must do everything possible to ensure that each official bears individual responsibility for human rights violations committed in the name of the “state,” which, moreover, will be recorded in domestic and ECHR judicial acts’, he continued.

He emphasised that while peace is necessary, any agreement that does not take into account the ‘many vital issues of the conflict and the real rights and interests of all sides’, cannot truly bring such peace or justice.

‘There can be no peace at the expense of the fundamental rights, dignity, and overall destiny of an entire people, especially when the regime on the other side is genocidal in nature and maintains its power on the pillars of racism and genocidal ideology’, Beglaryan concluded.

In response to the claims that Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians would sue the government, Armenia’s Parliamentary Speaker Alen Simonyan told journalists that they should ‘fight against those people who have taken real steps against them, not against the elected government of their own country’.

‘Should they file a lawsuit against our country, seriously, against the Republic of Armenia, against the taxpayers of Armenia, who have paid them salaries for decades, to protect them, against those people, against those people, against those whose children went and died, against themselves, should they file a lawsuit on their taxes, let them file a lawsuit. Let them file a lawsuit and their real intentions will become clear to everyone’, he said.

What happened between Armenia and Azerbaijan last week?

This past week has seen unprecedented steps toward the end of a decades-long conflict.

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