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The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) issued a landmark ruling on 16 June 2015 in favor of people displaced as a result of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict. The case Sargsyan v Azerbaijan, filed nearly a decade ago, exemplifies the plight of many civilians and is expected to affect them, as well. The court said Armenia and Azerbaijan must establish mechanisms to facilitate the reclamation of property rights and compensation. However, experts warn that the intractable nature of the conflict means that this timeframe is unrealistic, according to an article  published on the website of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting.

After Armenians living in Nagorno Karabakh demanded secession from Azerbaijan in the late Soviet period, a war broke out that ended only in 1994 with a ceasefire but no peace deal. Azerbaijan refuses to talk to the Karabakh leadership, and negotiations mediated by the OSCE are solely between the states of Azerbaijan and Armenia. The talks have made little headway because the two sides are so far apart in their fundamental visions of Karabakh’s future – independence versus reintegration – that it is hard to discuss even preliminary steps like refugee return and restitution, the authors of the article point out.

Larisa Alaverdyan, who heads an Armenian NGO called Against Legal Arbitrariness, told IWPR that the real issue to be decided is the form the compensation should take, whether it’s money, a property exchange, or return to the former places of residence.

The authors remind that Minas Sargsyan began his ECHR lawsuit against Azerbaijan in 2006, stating that fighting in 1992 forced him out of his home in the village of Gulistan in the Shahumyan district. He died in 2009, but his son Vladimir Sargsyan continued with the case, saying his father had always wanted to return to Gulistan. “Gulistan means ‘land of roses’, and it was a very beautiful and rich village. Like everyone else, we had a house, livestock and a market garden. I don’t know how the compensation will be paid, but I’m glad we won,” Vladimir Sargsyan said.

Ara Ghazaryan, an Armenian human rights activist and expert in international law, told IWPR that the next step should be referring the decisions to the Committee of Ministers, the Council of Europe's decision-making body, which monitors the implementation of ECHR judgements. “A dialogue must begin between Armenia and Azerbaijan, mediated by the Committee of Ministers,” he said and noted that both states must consider how the property rights should be restored, and create mechanisms to pay compensation, which will also concern the 1,000 outstanding cases.

“Human rights activists agree that the ECHR decision sets a precedent for creating a framework for property restitution. The obstacle is the lack of movement on the wider Karabakh peace process. Armenia and Azerbaijan are still technically in a state of war, and the resolution of human issues like property rights and the return of displaced persons are intertwined with the basic question of what happens to Karabakh itself,” the authors of the article highlight.

Ghazaryan told IWPR that no mechanisms will be created until the Karabakh issue is solved at the political level.
“If we look at this in purely legal terms, the ECHR’s decision is final and must be enforced. However, I wouldn’t wish to view it solely in legal terms, as there are a lot more elements including political ones,” stressed Hovhannes Sahakyan, an Armenian lawmaker who chairs the parliamentary committee on state and legal affairs.

Avaz Hasanov, director of the Society of Humanitarian Studies in Azerbaijan, believes the ECHR rulings were a “reminder” to the two governments of the pressing need to re-engage in the peace process. “These cases have been awaiting review at the ECHR for a long time. The rulings come just at a time when the sides have most distanced themselves from resolving the conflict and have started talking more about war,” he said. “It’s obvious the sides don’t plan to pay compensation to the plaintiffs.”

From the other hand, the authors of the article pay attention to the fact that even if the ECHR judgements offer a precedent for claimants displaced by combat in and around Nagorno Karabakh in the early 1990s, they may not give much hope to Armenians who left Azerbaijan, and Azerbaijanis who left Armenia. Members of these two minorities fled wholesale as tensions and violence rose both before and during the conflict. They too left homes and property behind.

Eleonora Asatryan is coordinator of the Refugees and International Rights NGO, which works on the rights of Armenians who fled Azerbaijan. She notes that none of the cases before the ECHR concerns the more than half a million refugees who came from Azerbaijan in 1988-1990. “The ECHR decision includes a range of information, but not a word about the ethnic cleansing in Sumgait, Baku, Kirovabad and other towns in the Azerbaijan SSR [Soviet republic], which resulted in more than 500,000 people becoming refugees. The ECHR ruling says armed conflict began in 1988, but the lawsuits relate only to 1992,” she stressed.

Arzu Abdullayeva, head of the Azerbaijani National Committee of the Helsinki Civic Assembly, is hopeful that the ECHR rulings will end up contributing to conflict resolution. “It’s especially positive that the claims were made from both sides. The ECHR examination of these cases will affect global awareness of the Karabakh issue. Rising numbers of cases of this kind will play an educational role. I believe cases like this will contribute to a peaceful resolution of the conflict,” she said. “The main thing is for the animosity between the two peoples to come to an end at last.”

Related:
Armenian refugee winning case in ECHR against Azerbaijan: Most important aspect is not compensation but that we won 
Artsakh issue at the European Court of Human Rights