(The Hague) The highest UN court ordered Azerbaijan on Wednesday to put an end to the blocking of a vital axis for the supply of the population in Nagorny-Karabakh, territory disputed with Armenia for more than thirty years.
Since mid-December, Azerbaijanis posing as environmental defenders demonstrating against illegal mines have been blocking the Lachin Corridor, a crucial road linking Armenia to the enclave.
Due to the blockade, the mountainous region of some 120,000 inhabitants – mostly Armenians – lacks food, medicine and fuel, a situation equivalent to “ethnic cleansing” in the eyes of Yerevan.
The situation for the attention of the international community: the European Union began Monday to deploy an observation mission on the border between the two countries and the head of American diplomacy Antony Blinken called on Armenia and the Azerbaijan to make peace.
Azerbaijan “must take all the measures at its disposal to ensure the unhindered movement of people, vehicles and goods along the Lachin corridor in both directions”, said Joan Donoghue, presiding judge of the Court International Justice (ICJ).
There is “urgency” to end the blockade which could cause “irreparable harm”, she added during a hearing.
The risk of escalation remains high in this predominantly Armenian-populated Azerbaijani enclave despite recent progress in peace talks between Baku and Yerevan and increased Western efforts to find a peaceful settlement in the region, which Russia considers to be part of its traditional area of influence.
Racial hatred
Rival former Soviet republics in the Caucasus, which fought a short war in 2020, both appealed to ICJ to intervene in the conflict.
The ICJ, which sits in The Hague, adjudicates disputes between states. Its judgments are without appeal, but it has no means other than diplomacy to enforce them.
Both countries wanted the court to take urgent action before dealing with cases on the merits in the dispute, based on alleged violations of an international convention against discrimination.
Although they ruled in favor of Yerevan on Wednesday, the magistrates rejected Baku’s request that the judges order Armenia to stop laying landmines in the disputed area.
Baku claimed Armenia had laid 2,700 mines since a peace deal to end war in the region by 2020.
Armenia and Azerbaijan clashed in the early 1990s, during the breakup of the USSR, for control of Nagorny-Karabakh.
This first conflict, which claimed 30,000 lives, ended in an Armenian victory. But Azerbaijan took its revenge in a second war that claimed the lives of 6,500 people in the fall of 2020 and allowed Baku to retake many territories.
The ICJ had already summoned the two countries in December 2021 to stop racial hatred and avoid aggravating their dispute.