On January 15 and February 1, respectively, the European Court of Human Rights received the complete applications in the Inter-State cases Azerbaijan v. Armenia and Armenia v. Azerbaijan, the Court said in a press release on Thursday, February 4.
In particular, the Armenian Government claims that Azerbaijan has violated the right to life, prohibition of torture and inhuman treatment, the right to liberty, the right to property, the right to personal and family life, the right to education, as well as a number of other Convention rights of the population of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) and Armenia.
Among other things, the Government has raised the issues pertaining to the protection of the rights of prisoners of war, individual civilian captives, displaced people, deceased and wounded persons and their relatives, persons who have lost their property, local and international reporters. A large amount of evidence has been submitted along with the Application.
The Court said, meanwhile, that the applications now received in the inter-State cases open the proceedings on the complaints about alleged violations of the Convention. The first matter for the Court to examine is the admissibility of the applications, the Court added.
Previously, on September 27 and October 27, 2020 the Court received requests for interim measures, lodged respectively by Armenia and Azerbaijan. Taking the view that the developing situation gave rise to a risk of serious violations of the Convention, it called upon both Armenia and Azerbaijan to refrain from taking any measures, in particular military action, which might entail breaches of the Convention rights of the civilian population.
In addition, the Court has received numerous requests under Rule 39 concerning the captives, lodged by the Government of either Armenia or Azerbaijan or by relatives of the captives. The requests received so far concern 241 individuals, 228 Armenians and 13 Azerbaijanis. The Court has invited the respondent Government to provide information on the individuals concerned.
