UN's highest court says it has jurisdiction over Azerbaijan and Armenia cases

(Patria) - The International Court of Justice (ICJ) announced yesterday that it has jurisdiction to consider rival cases brought by Armenia and Azerbaijan concerning the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region.

"The Court considers that it has jurisdiction to consider the cases submitted in September 2021," the ICJ said in a statement.

The decision by the 17-judge panel was unanimous, reported Azerbaijan's service of Radio Free Europe.

The UN's highest court, the International Court of Justice based in The Hague, also ruled in favor of Armenia on two of its objections but rejected a third.

In its case, Armenia claims that Azerbaijan violated the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination and carried out "ethnic cleansing" in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Azerbaijan rejected the allegations and filed a counterclaim. Baku accused Yerevan of hate speech and "racist" propaganda.

The cases concern actions in Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous region in Azerbaijan that was predominantly populated by ethnic Armenians.

Armenia and Azerbaijan fought wars in the early 1990s and in 2020 for control of the enclave.

Baku took control of the territory in September 2023 in a lightning one-day offensive that forced nearly the entire local ethnic Armenian population of about 100,000 people to flee to Armenia.

The International Court of Justice, which adjudicates disputes between states, issued emergency orders in December 2021, calling on both sides to prevent incitement and promotion of racial hatred.

Since then, it has considered various lawsuits filed by the two countries against each other.

Armenia returned to the UN court in 2023 in the weeks after Azerbaijan seized Nagorno-Karabakh.

The court did not announce when the next hearings in the rival cases will be held.

A ruling on the merits is expected to take years. Although the orders of the International Court of Justice are binding, the court has no mechanism for enforcing them.