“97 Percent of ECtHR Judgments Have Not Been Implemented by Azerbaijan”: Aghajanyan Calls This Shameful for PACE

Member of the Armenian delegation to the PACE, Eduard Aghajanyan, addressed the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe during its recent session. He highlighted the following points in his speech:

“Dear colleagues, on September 13, 2021, the Parliamentary Assembly adopted a resolution, which, among other statements, mentions, I quote:

6.1. Both Azerbaijan and Armenia have clear obligations to immediately release prisoners of war and civilians after the cessation of active hostilities.

6.2. It considers that the clear purpose of Article 8 of the Tripartite Declaration is the exchange of all detainees, irrespective of the differences in the status attributed by one side or the other.

6.7. Calls on the authorities of Azerbaijan to release all remaining detainees and return them to Armenia without further preconditions.

Dear colleagues, it is a fact that the Armenian side has fully fulfilled its obligation in this matter—without any preconditions—by returning all prisoners of war and civilians.

According to the same resolution, Armenia was supposed to hand over all mine maps to Azerbaijan to avoid further casualties, which the Armenian side has accomplished 100 percent. We took this step because we see it as an exclusively humanitarian act that cannot and should not become a subject of bargaining.

However, nearly a year after this resolution's adoption, Azerbaijan still holds at least 38 prisoners of war in a hostage situation to gain political leverage during peace negotiations with Armenia.

Dear colleagues, I just want to remind you that this horrific and painful act of treating human life as a bargaining chip is being carried out by a member state of the Council of Europe in the 21st century.

I would like to remind you that the conditions for membership in the Council of Europe include pluralistic democracy, the rule of law, and respect for the protection of human rights. Only those countries that meet these criteria can join the Council of Europe.

I will leave the subjective assessment of a country's degree of pluralistic democracy, which has been governed by the same family members for over 30 years and will likely continue this 'beautiful' tradition for another 30 years, to you.

Nevertheless, I am convinced that the initial cause of this shameless behavior lies in Azerbaijan's complete disregard for the decisions made by the European Court of Human Rights in historical records.

Because the latter is the only permanent mechanism that must guarantee at least one of the three conditions for joining this organization—respect for human rights.

Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to draw your attention to the following shameful statistics: in the last ten years, 97 percent of the judgments made by the ECtHR have not been implemented by Azerbaijan. When I say shameful, I mean this shameful reality for this council, as it shows that this organization should take appropriate steps regarding Azerbaijan, either to introduce new coercive mechanisms or simply to deny Azerbaijan's membership in this organization.

After all, if Azerbaijan makes zero effort to fulfill any of the membership conditions, can anyone tell me why Azerbaijan is still a member of the Council of Europe?

Thank you for your attention,” concluded Eduard Aghajanyan.