Azerbaijan is putting pressure on Armenia’s authorities to withdraw the interstate lawsuits against Baku. Lawyer Siranush Sahakyan, Head of the "Center for International and Comparative Law" NGO, stated this at the press conference Monday.
"And the approach that Azerbaijan will also withdraw lawsuits against Armenia on an equal basis is not a valid argument at all because we do not have a symmetrical situation. If there was bilateral aggression, bilateral crimes or invasions, bilateral ethnic cleansing, and both sides showed an equal approach to the situation, maybe this would be acceptable. However, we want to have equal solutions in an unequal situation, which will inevitably give rise to injustice," added Sahakyan.
According to her, for example, individuals cannot be parties to the UN International Court of Justice, countries must be parties, and this will have a significant impact on legal processes.
"For example, individuals or victims cannot submit issues of forms of racist discrimination to the [aforesaid] UN court. And the acts adopted by the UN court are not only legally binding, but can generate serious political pressure," added the lawyer.
Sahakyan emphasized that perhaps there is a possibility of legal actions in the ECtHR, where there is a possibility of both interstate and individual lawsuits.
"Even under these conditions, we believe that the damages will be substantial, so there is a need to refrain from such actions," Siranush Sahakyan added.
