The International Court of Justice has announced a decision on Armenia's preliminary objections to the lawsuit filed by Azerbaijan against Armenia. As in the case of Armenia v. Azerbaijan, it concerns the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. The full text of the decision will be available later. The final part was read out by Judge Nawaf Salam. Armenia had submitted three objections.

The first one concerns the time limits - until mid-September 15, 1996, when Azerbaijan was not yet a party to the Convention. The Court recalled that at that time Armenia could not have held Azerbaijan liable for violations of the Convention, as it was not a party to the instrument. Accordingly, the Court upheld Armenia's first objection.

The second objection concerned the Court's substantive authority on the mines and the allegation that this had a direct bearing on the policy of “ethnic cleansing”. The Court noted, however, that Azerbaijan did not request that the mines themselves be found to be in violation of the Convention. The Court rejected this objection.

The third objection concerned the Court's competence to examine Azerbaijan's complaints on environmental issues and damage. The Court noted that the damage indicated by Azerbaijan - destruction of forests, orchards, destruction of infrastructure, alteration of riverbeds - could occur in the territories around Nagorno-Karabakh and did not exclude such acts, which could be considered under the Convention. At the same time, the Court did not rule out that the changes could have occurred as a consequence of agricultural activities and that the Armenian actions took place in the commercial or business sphere. The Court considers that the water could have been used for the needs of Armenians, and the degradation of Azerbaijani territories was related to those activities, and the results could have affected all ethnic groups rather than being directed against Azerbaijanis. That is, even if acts were committed, they were not directed against an ethnic group. Armenia's third objection was also accepted by the Court.

Earlier, the Court had rejected Azerbaijan's preliminary objections to the Armenia v. Azerbaijan claim. Both Armenia's and Azerbaijan's objections have dissenting opinions.