UN Mission Deployment in Lachin Corridor and Artsakh is Minimum that International Community Can Do: Mirzoyan

Armenia reaffirms its unwavering commitment to the protection and promotion of human rights. This was noted by Armenia's Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan during his speech at the 52nd session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on February 28.

Below is the speech:

“Armenia reaffirms its unwavering commitment to the protection and promotion of human rights. This year, once again, Armenia has received the highest rankings in the region according to the World Press Freedom Index and the Economist Intelligence Unit's Democracy Index. As a member of the Human Rights Council, including the Bureau in 2022, Armenia has sought to make significant contributions to international efforts aimed at promoting and protecting human rights globally. I would especially like to highlight Armenia's contribution to international efforts aimed at preventing genocide. We express our gratitude to all the states that supported the consensus adoption of the resolutions on the prevention of genocide presented by Armenia to the Human Rights Council in 2022.

In 2023, we mark the 75th anniversary of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, which is the first human rights treaty adopted by the General Assembly. The following day, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted. This sequence of events was not accidental, as it was a period following the bloodiest and most brutal war in human history. These two documents laid a solid foundation for the UN's human rights architecture.

Mr. President, as noted by the UN Secretary-General in a recent assessment: “we are facing the gravest geopolitical fragmentation and distrust in recent times.” The year 2022 was also a challenging year for the Human Rights Council. As the High Commissioner recently noted, despite geopolitical tensions, the Council must be the place where we sit around one table to defend universal values of human rights and humanity.

We agree that the greatest challenge to the human rights system is ensuring equal attention to the protection of everyone's rights. We believe that the protection of the human rights of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh has been continuously overlooked. Understanding the seriousness of the situation created by conflicts and crises in other places, we are convinced that there can be no hierarchy of suffering based on geopolitical considerations and interests. Despite everything, the people of Nagorno-Karabakh strive to freely enjoy their human rights. This determination has not changed even in the face of the destructive, continuous waves of pressure and aggression from Azerbaijan, which have resulted in thousands of deaths and the destruction of hundreds of towns and villages, civil infrastructure, and monuments of cultural and religious heritage.

However, the international community has largely remained indifferent, while Azerbaijan has been further encouraged by a sense of impunity. Subsequently, that country attacked and occupied the sovereign territories of the Republic of Armenia. In such an atmosphere of complete impunity, Azerbaijan continues to violate the principles of international human rights and humanitarian law.

For around 80 days, Azerbaijan has blocked the Lachin Corridor, the only road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia and the outside world. Azerbaijan has also disrupted electricity supply and periodically interrupts gas supply. As a result, the Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh stands on the brink of humanitarian catastrophe. At the same time, Azerbaijan declares at the highest level that it can lift the blockade for those who wish to leave Nagorno-Karabakh. This is nothing more than a slow ethnic cleansing.

In this context, I would like to emphasize that on February 22, the International Court of Justice applied legally binding urgent measures against Azerbaijan within the framework of the proceedings initiated by Armenia, simultaneously rejecting Azerbaijan's requests regarding supposed landmines planted by Armenia in a parallel proceeding against Armenia. In its ruling, the court found that there is an immediate danger of irreparable harm to the rights of Armenians within the framework of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, and it ordered Azerbaijan to take all necessary measures to ensure the uninterrupted movement of individuals, vehicles, and cargo through the Lachin Corridor in both directions. The urgent measures of the International Court of Justice are legally binding, yet Azerbaijan has not stopped its blockade of the Lachin Corridor.

Azerbaijan commits this crime despite the truly universal call for the unblocking of the Lachin Corridor, including from the UN Secretary-General and the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Similarly, Azerbaijan has not investigated extrajudicial killings, the mutilation and desecration of the bodies of deceased Armenian servicemen, including women, despite clear calls from UN mandate holders. UN human rights experts have also emphasized that they still expect to receive from Azerbaijan “information on the factual and legal grounds for the detention of prisoners of war after the cessation of hostilities, as well as the measures taken to inform the families of the missing about their fate and exact whereabouts.”

In conclusion, Mr. President, I would like to express Armenia's firm conviction that the deployment of a UN inter-agency mission in the Lachin Corridor and Artsakh is the minimum that the international community can do under these circumstances. The UN is endowed with a universal mandate and must have unconditional and unhindered access to those in need. The UN’s human rights mechanisms must be used to save lives, provide necessary humanitarian assistance, and protect the rights of the affected individuals. The world must witness positive and successful examples of the application of international mechanisms, for which these mechanisms were created and mandated. The international system cannot afford another failure.

Thank you.”