The ICC should consider the new Armenian genocide petition – POLITICO

And now, we face one other: Final month, the California-based Middle for Reality and Justice (CFTJ) petitioned the Worldwide Felony Court docket (ICC), the place I served as the primary chief prosecutor, to analyze Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev for genocide towards Armenians in Armenia — and it’s a petition the ICC ought to take into account.

The problem in substantiating genocide usually lies in proving intent to destroy — in entire or partly — a chosen group. That’s why the huge file offered to the ICC on Apr. 18 by U.S. Orange County Superior Court docket Decide Gassia Apkarian, who represents the Middle for Reality and Justice, is outstanding. It presents the constant declarations made by Aliyev over the past decade, unequivocally demonstrating his intention to destroy ethnic Armenians.

To be clear, this isn’t simply concerning the Armenian neighborhood in Nagorno-Karabakh — a disputed, self-governing enclave inside Azerbaijan. The communication is targeted on totally different types of genocide dedicated towards Armenians in Armenia itself.

As early as April 2015, Aliyev printed an announcement on the Azerbaijan authorities’s official web site, warning ethnic Armenians: “If you do not need to die, then get out of Azerbaijani lands.” He has additionally repeatedly dehumanized ethnic Armenians, referring to them as a “virus,” “rats,” “canines,” “devils,” “terrorists,” “fascists,” “enemies,” “usurping interlopers,” “barbarians and vandals,” whereas encouraging violence towards them.

To destroy totally different Armenian teams that had been in areas of Armenia underneath unlawful Azerbaijani occupation, he created situations calculated to deliver concerning the bodily destruction of civilians and produce psychological hurt (as outlined by the Genocide Conference’s Article 2c), in flip resulting in their decimation (Article 2b) and forcible displacement. Subsequently, the Azerbaijani Armed Forces launched navy assaults to take management of those areas, indiscriminately killing ethnic Armenian civilians who refused, or had been unable, to flee (Article 2a).

In Nagorno-Karabakh, Aliyev carried out this technique in clear view of the worldwide neighborhood.