Author: Manouk Vasilian

THE HAGUE, Netherlands – The United Nations' highest court ordered Azerbaijan on Wednesday to “take all steps at its disposal” to allow free movement of traffic along the only road between Armenia and the ethnic Armenian Nagorno-Karabakh region in Azerbaijan that has been blocked by protesters in a move that has further fueled tensions between the two countries.

The legally binding 13-2 ruling by the International Court of Justice results from the latest legal skirmishes in a long-running feud between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh. Each country filed a case with the court accusing the other of breaching a convention aimed at stamping out racial discrimination.

Wednesday's ruling on the blocked road known as the Lachin Corridor came just over two years after the neighboring nations ended a war in Nagorno-Karabakh that killed about 6,800 soldiers and displaced around 90,000 civilians.

The remote and rugged region is within Azerbaijan but had been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia since the end of a separatist war in 1994.

A cease-fire brokered by Russia ended the 2020 war and granted Azerbaijan control over parts of Nagorno-Karabakh as well as adjacent land occupied by Armenians. Russia sent a peacekeeping force of 2,000 troops to maintain order, including controlling the Lachin Corridor.

Armenia’s lawyers said during court hearings last month that the roadblock set up late last year by protesters claiming to be environmental activists was part of an Azerbaijani campaign the Armenians labeled “ethnic cleansing.”

International Court of Justice President Joan E. Donoghue said the evidence presented by Armenia established that the blockade “has impeded the transfer of persons of Armenian national and ethnic origin hospitalized in Nagorno-Karabakh to medical facilities in Armenia for urgent medical care."

It also interrupted supplies to Nagorno-Karabakh of “essential goods causing shortages of food, medicine and other lifesaving medical supplies,” Donoghue said.

In their majority decision, the court's judges ordered Azerbaijan to “take all measures at its disposal to ensure unimpeded movement of persons, vehicles and cargo along the Lachin Corridor in both directions.”

In a statement, Azerbaijan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the court's ruling “took note of Azerbaijan’s representation that Azerbaijan has and undertakes to continue to take all steps within its power and at its disposal to guarantee safe movement along the Lachin road.”

The statement said Azerbaijan "will continue to uphold the rights of all people under international law and to hold Armenia to account for its ongoing and historic grave violations of human rights.”

The court, in its ruling, said that Armenia's request for judges to order Azerbaijan to “cease its orchestration and support" of the protests on the Lachin Corridor was "not warranted.”

The judges rejected Armenia's request for an order for Azerbaijan not to block gas supplies to Nagorno-Karabakh, saying that Armenian lawyers did not provide enough evidence to back their claim that Azerbaijan was disrupting the supply.

The judges also declined a request by Azerbaijan for an order to stop or prevent Armenia from laying landmines and booby traps in areas of the region to which Azerbaijani citizens are to return.

The world court ordered both nations a little over a year ago to prevent discrimination against one another’s citizens in the aftermath of the war and to not further aggravate the conflict.

Armenia had told the court 120,000 people were running short of food, medicine and fuel due to the blockade of the disputed territory. The Lachin corridor is the only road between Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Wednesday ordered Azerbaijan to end its blockade in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region.

The court reached the legally binding ruling after a 13-2 vote.

Since mid-December, a group of Azerbaijanis have blocked the Lachin corridor, which is the only road into Nagorno-Karabakh from Armenia. The group cited illegal mining causing environmental damage as the reason for its protest blocking access to the region.

The two countries in the Caucasus fought over the disputed region in the 1990s and again in 2020. Following the latter of the two wars, a Russian-brokered truce saw Armenia cede territories to Azerbaijan.

Earlier this month, Armenia offered a peace plan to Azerbaijan, aiming to definitively resolve the territorial dispute.

"Azerbaijan shall, pending the final decision in this case… take all measures at its disposal to ensure unimpeded movement of persons, vehicles and cargo along the Lachin corridor in both directions," presiding judge Joan Donoghue said.

"The disruption on the Lachin Corridor has impeded the transfer of persons of Armenian national and ethnic origin," she said.

Donoghue said that there had been "shortages of food, medicine and other life-saving medical supplies" in Nagorno-Karabakh due to the roadblock. She added that there was a "risk that irreparable prejudice will be caused."

The court also pointed to a 2021 ruling in which UN judges ordered both states to do everything possible not to escalate the conflict.

Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan said Yerevan welcomed the ruling that "Azerbaijan must take all measures to end its blockade and ensure unimpeded movement of persons."

"We are also pleased to see truth prevail as the Court rejected in full Azerbaijan's counter request."

Armenia last month told the court that some 120,000 people had been running short of food, medicine and fuel due to the blockade, adding that people could not be transported to area hospitals.

Yerevan also accused Azerbaijan of committing "ethnic cleansing" in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Baku denied the allegations and filed a counter-claim against Yerevan, accusing Armenia of laying landmines and "murdering and maiming Azerbaijanis." In its Wednesday ruling, the ICJ said that Baku did not show that the landmines specifically targeted Azerbaijanis.

sdi/sms (AP, AFP, Reuters, dpa)

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (CN) — The United Nations' highest court ordered Azerbaijan on Wednesday to ensure free movement along the only highway between the Armenian border and a majority ethnically Armenian region inside Azerbaijan. 

The International Court of Justice ruled on a number of requests from the Caucasus neighbors in a pair of cases where each accuses the other of violating a decadesold treaty forbidding racial discrimination, granting one of Armenia’s protection measures while dismissing those of Azerbaijan. 

"There is a real and imminent risk that irreparable prejudice will be caused before the court makes a final decision in the case,” the court's president, Judge Joan Donoghue, said in reading out the ruling. 

Following a bloody 2020 war over Nagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan, the pair complained to The Hague-based court that the other is guilty of violating the 1965 International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, or CERD, which requires signatories to take steps to end racial discrimination and promote of understanding between differing nationalities, races and ethnic groups. 

Last year, both countries asked the court to intervene for the second time while the underlying case is being considered. During hearings in January, Armenia asked the court to guarantee access to the Lachin corridor, the only road between Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia, as well as restore the flow of natural gas. 

Nagorno-Karabakh, a 1,700-square-mile area that technically falls within the borders of Azerbaijan but is overwhelmingly ethnically Armenian, has been a source of friction since the fall of the Soviet Union. 

In its first ruling Wednesday, the court ordered Azerbaijan’s capital Baku to allow the free movement of people and cargo along the corridor, finding there was evidence that blockades had caused “shortages of food, medicine and other life-saving medical supplies.” 

However, the 15-judge panel said two other requests from Armenia – one asking for Azerbaijan to end demonstrations along the road and the other to ensure the supply of gas – failed to meet the standard for provisional measures. The court wrote Armenia had “not placed before it sufficient evidence” for its claims. 

In its own case, Azerbaijan accused Armenia of engaging in ethnic cleansing by planting explosive devices in the region and refusing to hand over maps indicating where mines have been placed.

However, in its second ruling of the day, the court found that these allegations also did not meet the threshold under the CERD. In that case, a 16-judge panel said that Azerbaijan had failed to prove Armenian was using mines to target civilians based on their nationality. The court ruled identically on a similar request made by Baku earlier in the proceedings. 

The pair both first appealed to The Hague-based court in 2021. Hearings were held in the first requests they made for provisional measures – essentially an injunction – the same year.  Armenia argued Azerbaijan was intentionally exacerbating existing tensions by erecting a war memorial using the helmets of dead Armenian soldiers, while Azerbaijan claimed the Armenian military had seeded the ground with landmines, leaving the area dangerous and impassable. 

In December 2021, the court ordered Azerbaijan to ensure the safety of soldiers captured in the conflict, prevent incitement of racial hatred and protect Armenian cultural heritage sites, while telling Armenia to avoid doing anything to exacerbate the conflict. Both sets of earlier measures continue to stand, the court reiterated Wednesday.

The Council of Europe, the oversight body of the European Court of Human Rights, has also weighed in, ordering Azerbaijan to open the Lachin corridor last month. The countries have a different case pending before the rights court, which protects the civil and political rights of Europeans, stemming from the same conflict.