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by Jeyhun Mollazade,
Ph.D. The conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh between Armenia and Azerbaijan was the first major ethno-political conflict the former Soviet Union. This article reviews legal aspects of this confrontation. 1. The Karabakh Conflict in relation to the Laws and Constitution of the former USSR. On February 20 1988 a Session of the Supreme Soviet of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region (NKAR) in regional center of Stepanakert appealed to the Supreme Soviet of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and the USSR government to allow it to be joined to Armenia. The Azerbaijani government
quickly rejected this request on the basis of the USSR Constitution
of 1977, Article 78, which provides that "the territory
of Union Republics may be altered by mutual agreement of the
Republics concerned, subject to ratification by the Union of
Soviet Socialist Republics." This constitutional act However, on July 18, 1988,
a special session of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the
USSR discussed the Resolution of the Supreme Soviet of the NKAR
on secession from Azerbaijan and incorporation into Armenia and
adopted a decision confirming that Nagorno-Karabakh remain an
Autonomous Region within Azerbaijan. All attempts of Azeri authorities to discuss possible solutions to the existing problems in the region with Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh were rejected. Representatives of the Azerbaijani government visiting Stepanakert were attacked and beaten. On December 1, 1989, the
Supreme Soviet of Armenia adopted a resolution on the unification
of Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia. Such a resolution violates
Azerbaijan's territorial integrity and makes the territorial
claims official. The Autonomous Regions in the former USSR did
not have constitutions as did Autonomous Republics and neither
had the right of secession as did the Union Republics. The principle
of granting autonomous Status (Region or Republic) to the national
minorities in the former USSR did not have any logical basis
and their creation had more political aims For example, large compact
ethnic Azeri communities in Armenia and Georgia, and Armenian
communities in Georgia were not granted any autonomous status
but the smaller Armenian community in Karabakh was given the
status of Autonomous Region under Azerbaijani jurisdiction and
the even smaller Ossetian community was granted Armenians were the only people in the former USSR who had both a Union Republic and Autonomous Region status in the territory of another Union Republic (Azerbaijan); Ossetians had Autonomous Republic status in the Russian Federation and Autonomous Region status in Georgia. Nakhichevan was separated
from Azerbaijan by the former Azerbajani territory Zangezur populated
by Azeris, but given to Armenia in 1921. Autonomous Republic
status was granted to Nakhichevan under Azerbaijan jurisdiction.
At the same time several indigenous groups in the former USSR
had neither a Union Republic an 2. The Karabakh Conflict in relation to the Terms of Treaty of the Commonwealth of Independent States. After the anti-Gorbachev
coup d^ñetat failure in 1991 and the collapse of the USSR,
Armenia and Azerbaijan, as independent states entered the Commonwealth
of Independent States. One of the major principles of the Commonwealth
Treaty is inviolability of the borders of the constituent sovereign
states, that is However, the Armenian
population in Nagorno-Karabakh held a referendum, declared the
establishment of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic as an independent
state and appealed to the Commonwealth for membership. This separatist
action contradicts the principles of the Treaty, signed by eleven
sovereign Republics, the Helsinki 3. The Karabakh Conflict in relation to International Law, CSCE, and UN Principles. At the present time, Armenia
has changed its policy towards the Nagorno-Karabakh problem.
Armenian president Ter-Petrossian and other officials have stated
that Armenia has no territorial claims to Azerbaijan and Nagorno-Karabakh
was the internal matter of Azerbaijan and the problem of self
determination of the Armenian Consequently, arriving at a solution of the minorities' problem based upon the framework of the present borders and on the basis of Article 27 of the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights is much more constructive than secession which has always contributed to destabilization in the Transcaucasia. "The express acceptance in (relevant U.N. resolutions) of the principles of the national unity and the territorial integrity of the States Implies non-recognition of the right of secession. The right of peoples to self-determination, as it emerges from the United Nations, exists for peoples under colonial and alien domination, that is to say, who are not living under the legal form of a State. The right to secession from an existing State Member of the United Nations does not exist as such in the instrument or in the practice followed by the Organization, since to seek to invoke it in order to disrupt the national unity and the territorial integrity of a State would be a misapplication of the principle of self- determination contrary to the purposes of the United Nations Charter." (G. Espiel, The Right to Self-Determination, supra note 151, paragraph 90). Antonio Cassese, a prominent expert on international law and the problems of self-determination, describes this issue in his article, Self Determination of Peoples: "The right of self-determination, I have said, belongs also to 'national' peoples in a multinational state like the federated republics of the USSR. The ethnic minorities in unitary states who are not 'peoples' for purposes of Article 1, national peoples, federated in a Sovereign state and enjoying distinct Constitutional status, enjoy the right of external self-determination. This includes the right to independence, which the central sovereign, if a part to the Covenant, is bound to honor." Armenians living in Azerbaijan
and Georgia, Azeris who lived in Armenia and are now living in
Georgia, and Georgians living in Azerbaijan are considered to
be ethnic minorities who have the rights formulated in Article
27 of the Covenant on Civil and Armenia is violating the
territorial integrity of Azerbaijan as well as the principles
of the United Nations by sending armed forces into Nagorno- Karabakh.
Such use of force is prohibited, according to UN Article 2 (4),
unless Armenia's use of force is "In accordance with
our obligations under the Charter of the United Nations and commitments
under the Helsinki Final Act, we renew our pledge to refrain
from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity
of political independence of any State or from acting in any
other manner inconsistent with the principles or purposes of
those documents. We recall that non-compliance with Obligations
under the Charter of the United Nations constitutes a violation
of international law" (Charter of The presence of Armenian
military troops in Azerbaijan is said to be for "self-defense"
purposes. If that be the case, then why have Armenian 'self-defenders"
attacked Azeri villages, burned houses, killed civilians and
evicted the Azeri population from Nagorno-Karabakh. Their reference
to self-defense is an attempt to But from the beginning
of 1992 several CSCE, UN fact-finding missions have visited the
area and gathered more detail and objective information about
the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh. On February 26-28, 1992,
the first CSCE fact-finding mission It seems that the Armenian
side considers that the secession from Azerbaijan and the establishment
of an independent Nagorno-Karabakh republic is the only resolution
to the conflict. Such an option is not acceptable to Azerbaijan
as it violates its "Any attempt aimed
at the partial or total disruption of the national unity and
the territorial integrity of a country is Incompatible with the
purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations"
(The Right of Self-determination declaration Even the official approach of the Armenian government changed but the Armenian parliamentary resolutions on incorporation of Nagorno-Karabakh still exist. Armenian officials say that they are not valid; however it have not been annulled and officially still exist. The citizens of Armenia are present on the territory of Azerbaijan as military force. Though Armenia's authorities have changed their stance on the problem the facts indicate the extent of political and military interference by the Republic of Armenia in the internal affairs of Azerbaijan. Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh at this stage of the conflict have also changed their position. At the present time they do not want to join Armenia, but want to establish an independent state based on the principle of rights of peoples to self-determination. In such case, it is very important to differentiate between the rights of the "people" and the rights of "minorities." Armenians living in Azerbaijan are a national minority which have a mother-nation in Armenia. As such, they have the right to self-determination in regard to effective participation in political social, economic, cultural, religious, and public life in a manner which is neither threatening to the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan nor its sovereignty. After the collapse of the Russian empire, the Armenian people established their right on the territory of present Armenia and on Zangezur, which had been given to them by the Bolshevik government after the Soviet occupation of the two republics in 1920-21. The Armenian people achieved independence and their right to the territory of the present Armenia again after the collapse of the communist empire in l99l. The strictly legal arguments against secession have been summarized by Lee C. Buchhelt as follows: * 1. That the right of
self-determination can only be exercised once on the basis of
the maxim pacta sunt servanda; How many times will the Armenian people determine their rights by building independent states? Today, they plan to do it on the territory of Azerbaijan. In the future it might be Georgia, Russia, or some place else. Armenian scholars emphasize that Nagorno-Karabakh is a special case and differs from other Armenian communities outside of Armenia as it had Autonomous Status which is the starting point for self-determination, and consequently, of secession. But the Autonomous Region of Nagorno-Karabakh did not have the right of secession on the basis of the Constitutions of the former USSR and Azerbaijan. So, there is no legitimate difference in terms of secession between Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenians living in compact communities in other countries. There is no doubt that
Armenians living in Azerbaijan or in the territory of other states
are a national minority, and as such, have the right to determine
the status inside the states they are inhabiting, but they should
not take measures for its "Nothing in the foregoing
paragraphs (the principle of equal rights and self-determination
of peoples) shall be construed as authorizing or encouraging
any action which would dismember or impair, totally or in part,
the territorial integrity or political unity of sovereign and
independent States conducting themselves in Armenians in Azerbaijan as a national minority have the right of internal self-determination which enables their tree participation in the political life of Azerbaijan to pursue their own economic, social, and cultural development, establish and maintain, without discrimination, free and peaceful contacts across frontiers with citizens of Armenia to whom they are related by national, religious, and linguistic ties. Self-determination however, does not necessarily mean secession, particularly by the use of force. The problem of self-determination,
and subsequent secession, is a very complicated question, especially
in such areas as the Caucasus, where the state borders do not
coincide with ethnicity. Today about 300,000 Azeris live in Georgia,
250,000 of them in a compact settlement; 200,000 Azeris inhabited
Armenia before their deportation, more than 100,000 of them were
living near lake Sevan; 150,000 Azeris are currently living in
Daghestan;approximately 500,000 Armenians are living in Georgia
400,000 If secession, as a result
of self-determination is the only possible mean for peaceful
resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict as Armenian experts
and politicians insist, then the other national minorities in
Georgia and Azerbaijan must have the Such an approach might
be acceptable to Armenia, as no national groups continue to live
there any more except for a few Jazidis; but such a policy or
practice is not acceptable to Georgia and Azerbaijan as they
have several national minorities living in A secessionist approach
in this region will lead to instability, confrontation, and bloodshed.
It will not serve the purposes of friendly relations between
the Transcaucasian Republics. The present situation in Transcaucasia
proves this, particularly Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan, and
Ossetia in Georgia. The demands for the secession of Nagorno-Karabakh
from Azerbaijan after the deportation of Azeris from Armenia,
by Armenians insisting that their rights have been violated,
not only is International law directly
states that "No State or group of States has the right to
intervene, directly or indirectly, for any reasons whatever in
the internal or external affairs of any other States. Consequently
armed intervention and all other forms of _______ From Azerbaijan International
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