Nagorno-Karabakh’s Right to Self-Determination

Abstract:Historically, Nagorno-Karabakh has always been occupied predominantly by Armenians. It was wrongly allocated to Azerbaijan by Lenin in 1921, but after the collapse of the Soviet Union its people voted for independence and recruited a local army of their own people to fight the civil war, 1991-4. During the siege of Stepanakert (a grave Azeri war crime), the road between that city and Goris (in Armenia) took on the status of a humanitarian corridor, secured by the justifiable capture of the town of Lachin. The author has interviewed some of the war commanders and victims and draws on their evidence, filed with the European Court of Human Rights but never before published, to explain how “the right of belligerent reprisal” arose to justify protecting the civilian population by taking and keeping the corridor. A legal precedent can be found in the “safe havens” established for Iraqi Kurds in Iraq. Nagorno-Karabakh has a strong argument for self-determination, following on from the precedents from East Timor and Kosovo. And it satisfies the tests for statehood laid down in the MonteVideo Convention. Given its vulnerability to Azeri attack by the prolonged illegal blockade of the Lachin corridor, it may be that nothing will succeed except secession.