Armenia requests World Court to dismiss Azerbaijan’s discrimination case

Armenia has requested that the International Court of Justice dismiss a case brought by Azerbaijan accusing them of anti-Azeri ethnic cleansing in violation of a U.N. anti-discrimination treaty. This request comes after Azerbaijan made a similar request to the ICJ to dismiss a case brought against them by Armenia. The final ruling in both cases is expected to take years, and the court does not have the power to enforce its rulings.

During a hearing at the ICJ, Armenia’s representative Yeghishe Kirakosyan argued that Azerbaijan was relying on facts from before the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD) entered into force between the two countries in September 1996. The case is a result of ongoing tensions between the two South Caucasus neighbors, particularly regarding the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region in Azerbaijan.

In 2021, Armenia filed a case at the ICJ accusing Azerbaijan of racism against Armenians, tolerating hate speech, and destroying Armenian cultural sites, all of which Azerbaijan denies. In response, Azerbaijan filed their own case against Armenia, alleging ethnic cleansing from the early 1990s to 2020. Armenia refutes these claims.

Azerbaijan argued that most of the complaints relate to armed conflicts over Nagorno-Karabakh and fall outside the scope of the anti-discrimination treaty. They also claim that Armenia did not give enough time to resolve the dispute through negotiations. The current hearings at the ICJ are focused on the legal objections to the court’s jurisdiction and will not address the merits of the discrimination claims.