Following a war between Armenia and Azerbaijan in 2020, the Republic of Azerbaijan filed a complaint with the International Court of Justice for violation by Armenia to the norms of the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.
Azerbaijan's position is based on the following: during the 30 years of military occupation, all civilian buildings, incl. hospitals, schools, kindergartens, residential buildings, cultural and historical monuments, religious sites and cemeteries remaining in the occupied territories were completely damaged and destroyed by the Republic of Armenia. According to expert data, the cost of the damage caused to Azerbaijan exceeds 50 billion US dollars. In Azerbaijan's appeal to the International Court of Justice, Armenia is accused of practicing racial discrimination against ethnic Azerbaijanis through military occupation and ethnic cleansing of about one million citizens, as well as erasing cultural heritage and carrying out environmental aggression in the former occupied territories.
Azerbaijan raises 4 sets of claims against Armenia, namely ethnic cleansing, cultural erasure, environmental aggression and hate speech and disinformation. Referring to the final expulsion of 1 million Azerbaijanis from Armenia and former occupied territories on grounds of “national and ethnic origin” in the period from 1987 to 2020 and the massacre of over 600 Azerbaijani civilians in the city of Khojaly in 1992, which the international community condemned as an act of genocide. Azerbaijan attributes this “policy of ethnic cleansing” of Armenia's discriminatory strategy to achieve a mono-ethnic state.
In Azerbaijan's application, Armenia is accused of pursuing a policy of “cultural erasure” in the former occupied territories in order to eliminate any trace of Azerbaijani ethnicity by destroying and changing the Azerbaijani names of districts and regions with Armenian topographical names, as well as looting and destroying the Azerbaijani objects of cultural heritage.
In addition, Azerbaijan states that Armenia's discriminatory policies deny ethnic Azerbaijanis access to basic resources, exploitation of natural resources and environmental devastation in the occupied territories: Armenia denies access to Azerbaijanis to over 90 % of the Sarsang Reservoir, deliberately depriving Azerbaijanis who lived on the territory of the reservoir of drinking water.
In addition, Azerbaijan claims that Armenia continues to incite ethnic hatred and promotes racist propaganda against Azerbaijanis, incl. in its educational institutions, textbooks, public and social media – through a coordinated campaign of disinformation and spreading anti-Azerbaijani hate speech.
Experts believe that the Court will take into account all the evidence of the events that happened in the last 30 years in a wider context – not only the events themselves, but also the motives behind them.
The material was provided to FACTS by the Embassy of Azerbaijan in Bulgaria