The Process of Determining Borders with Azerbaijan Must be Immediately Halted or Revised: Human Rights Defender

The process of determining or clarifying the borders with Azerbaijan [regardless of the terminology used, henceforth conditionally termed as determination] is accompanied by gross violations of the rule of law and human rights. Therefore, it lacks legitimacy and must be immediately halted or revised.

The conclusion of the Human Rights Defender of Armenia is based on the following key factors:

1. The process is taking place under the explicit threat of war directed at the entire population of the Republic of Armenia.
2. The President of Azerbaijan speaks of the entire Armenian people and the population of Armenia in terms of explicit threats of ethnic cleansing and genocide. The same rhetoric is used by the President of Turkey. For example, during the military event in Baku on December 10 following the war of September-November 2020, speeches by both presidents were filled with references to the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire, glorifying the organizers and perpetrators of the mass massacres against Armenians in Baku, including members of the Caucasian Islamic Army. They declared Armenia an artificial state with no value, publicly referred to Armenians as dogs, and so forth.
3. The President of Azerbaijan and, by his example, public figures openly insult the dignity of the Armenian people, inciting hatred based on ethnic affiliation, and do so with the aim of humiliating the personal dignity of every person living in Armenia (comparing Armenians to dogs, equating them to animals, not recognizing them as human beings, considering Armenians as evil, calling for the killing of Armenian children, women, and the elderly, etc.).
4. The determination process employs only absolutely unacceptable mechanical approaches, including the use of GPS or map applications from private organizations like Google. There is a complete absence of professional approaches, no commission work is being conducted, there is no preliminary inventory, and needs assessments of people are not being carried out. There are no proper legal bases.
5. As a result of the events, the socio-economic rights of the residents of the Syunik and Gegharkunik regions of Armenia have been grossly violated, including deprivation of land and houses, to which their rights [including property rights] were subject to state registration by the Soviet or independent Armenian state bodies. The lives, physical and mental integrity, and the other rights guaranteed by the Constitution of Armenia have been seriously endangered. The best interests of children to live and develop in a peaceful, violence-free environment have been disrupted.
6. Azerbaijani soldiers, that is, armed individuals, are stationed immediately next to or in residential areas of Armenian civilians [for example in the enlarged communities of Goris and Kapan in the Syunik region, placed on inter-state or inter-community roads or directly within the residential areas]. In order to justifiably ensure the life and security of Armenian civilians, Armenian and Russian border guards have also been positioned in the same areas, and again, armed individuals are present. The resulting situation has disrupted the safe organization of people’s lives and livelihoods in Armenian peaceful settlements and has seriously endangered their security.
7. The residents of Armenia's border settlements have been deprived of pastures and other agricultural lands that were vital for them, which had been the sole source of income for their families for years. In addition, people have been deprived of the right guaranteed by the Constitution of the Republic of Armenia to engage in economic activities, including entrepreneurship, both from properties allocated by acts of competent Armenian state authorities and properties they own.
8. The security of the state borders of the Republic of Armenia has been endangered.
9. There is no accessible and predictable timeline for people established by the trilateral statement of November 9, 2020, or any other document. As a result, the unacceptable speed of the border determination process and the lack of adequate information regarding the vital rights (life, property, and other rights) and the possibilities for their protection directly concerning border residents have led to uncertainty and ungrounded unpredictable situations.

Thus, the border determination in the Syunik and Gegharkunik regions of Armenia is occurring amid gross violations of human rights, happening under explicit threats of war and genocide directed at our entire population by Azerbaijan, and therefore contradicts the principles of the rule of law and has no legitimacy.

The issue concerns both the direct rights violations of residents of border settlements and the serious endangerment of the rights of the entire population of Armenia through indirect effects.

Such approaches to the determination of boundaries will not contribute to peaceful coexistence among the peoples of the region, but will also create fertile ground for the continuing hatred and enmity in Azerbaijan and its dangerous manifestations.

Any process involving humans should be rooted in the rule of law, and thus in the internationally recognized [and constitutionally guaranteed within our country] rights of the individual. This is a fundamental principle of democracy.

It is clear that under the current circumstances, the aforementioned regarding the determination of the borders of the Republic of Armenia undermines the foundations of the international human rights system and completely contradicts the very fundamental principles for which modern international law was created after the Second World War to ensure human rights and peace.