Luis Moreno Ocampo, who served as the first Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), has accused Azerbaijan of committing “genocide” against the Armenians of Artsakh.

Ocampo, in a twenty-eight page opinion piece released on August 7, writes:

“The blockade of the Lachin Corridor by the Azerbaijani security forces impeding access to any food, medical supplies, and other essentials should be considered a Genocide under Article II, (c) of the Genocide Convention: “Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction.”

Earlier this month, Artsakh President Arayik Harutyunyan asked Ocampo to comment on Azerbaijan’s ongoing blockade of the Lachin Corridor and whether it constitutes an act of genocide.

Ocampo writes that while Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev cannot be investigated for the crime of genocide by any foreign national authorities because he enjoys immunity as a head of state, the U.N. Security Council can refer the situation of the Lachin Corridor and Nagorno-Karabakh after December 2022 to the ICC.

Ocampo points out that Azerbaijan is not a state party of the Rome Statute (Article 12(1)), the treaty creating the ICC and has not accepted the ICC’s jurisdiction (Article 12(3)).

He says Armenians of the diaspora should mobilize to pressure the international community to act in Karabakh.

Ocampo argues that Russia, responsible for peacekeeping in Nagorno-Karabakh, and the US, promoting current negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan, are state parties of the Genocide Convention, as are all the European Union members. 

“They have a privileged position to prevent this Genocide. Their intense confrontation due to the Ukrainian conflict should not transform the Armenians into collateral victims. Is it possible to assist European, Russian, and USA leaders to reach a joint position to stop the ongoing Armenian Genocide? If they could agree, the food will reach the Armenians within one day.”

Photo: Agence France-Presse/Roel Rosenburg