Taron Simonyan, a member of the National Assembly of the 7th convocation, wrote on his Facebook page about the unused international legal opportunities against Azerbaijan.

“If the government thinks that it is time” arms “for the restoration of violated rights, it is unclear why he did not use the entire international legal arsenal to Azerbaijan for the president and his accomplice internationally prosecutable exiled to the military and political leadership …

Among others here are three possible levers that are not used:

CONVENTION AGAINST TAKING HOSTAGES (1983)

Azerbaijan ratified in 2000, Armenia in 2004.

Article 1:

1. Any person who seizes or detains and threatens to kill, to injure or to continue to detain another person (hereinafter referred to as the “hostage”) in order to compel a third party. namely, a State, an international intergovernmental organization, a natural or Juridical person, or a group of persons, to do or abstain from doing any act as an explicit or implicit condition to the release of the hostage commits the offence of taking of hostages (“hostage-taking”) within the meaning of this Convention.

INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION AGAINST THE RECRUITMENT, USE, FINANCING AND TRAINING OF MERCENARIES (1990)

Ratified by Azerbaijan in 1997 and Armenia by 2020.

Article 1:

For the purposes of the present Convention,

1. A mercenary is any person who:
(a) Is specially recruited locally or abroad in order to fight in an armed conflict;

(b) Is motivated to take part in the hostilities essentially by the desire for private gain and, in fact, is promised, by or on behalf of a party to the conflict, material compensation substantially in excess of that promised or paid to combatants of similar rank and functions in the armed forces of that party;

(c) Is neither a national of a party to the conflict nor a resident of territory controlled by a party to the conflict;
(d) Is not a member of the armed forces of a party to the conflict; and

(e) Has not been sent by a State which is not a party to the conflict on official duty as a member of its armed forces.

Article 2:

Any person who recruits, uses, finances or trains mercenaries, as defined in article 1 of the present Convention, commits an offence for the purposes of the Convention.

CONVENTION AGAINST TORTURE AND OTHER CRUEL, INHUMAN OR DEGRADING TREATMENT OR PUNISHMENT (1984)

Ratified by Azerbaijan in 1996 and Armenia in 1993.

Article 1:

1. For the purposes of this Convention, the term “torture” means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.

By the way, this is a non-exhaustive list of unused legal levers against Azerbaijan.

The mentioned conventions all have a clear mechanism to start a legal process – negotiations, arbitration, through the International Court of Justice.

P.S. I do not know why the government does not use these opportunities. I only know that it is already the eighth month, I speak about it in every way, I ask, I urge, I demand…

“Moreover, I and many better lawyers than me are ready to work day and night without any compensation, but it seems that we still prefer inaction or hope for some illusions.”