By Hrair Balian
Hrair Balian, who has worked for more than three decades in international conflict resolution, writes that the presence of diplomatic observers could restrain unfair practices underway in the prosecution of political prisoners from the Central Asian region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which was overrun by Azerbaijani forces in 2023.
Hrair Balian, former director of conflict resolution for the Carter Center. Courtesy photo
April 09, 2025
New York Law Journal
“Judge me professionally, publicly, openly … in the presence of international journalists and observers,” asked Armenian political prisoner Ruben Vardanyan of his Azerbaijani captors this month. “Don’t mock the judicial system with this show trial.”
Vardanyan, who was effectively the prime minister of Nagorno-Karabakh, has been jailed since September 2023, when Azerbaijani troops overran the autonomous enclave, detained him and other elected officials, and drove out its 120,000 Armenians. Along with previously detained ethnic Armenians, the former human rights advocate, philanthropist, and banker is on trial on trumped-up charges and spent weeks on a recently ended hunger strike. Recent reports of a possible peace deal between Armenia and Azerbaijan make no mention of the fate of these political prisoners.
The trials are conducted in a closed military court, without access to chosen lawyers. Only the Geneva-based International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) had access to the prisoners. On March 5, the ICRC was expelled from Azerbaijan, leaving the political prisoners, who number 23 in total, with access only to court officials. The ICRC was the prisoners’ only occasional link to their families.
Following the expulsion of the ICRC and in the absence of other observers or journalists permitted to monitor the trials, diplomatic representatives of the United States, the EU member states and others accredited in Azerbaijan have the responsibility to demand the right to observe the trials. Diplomatic observers could at least restrain some of the grossly unfair practices underway. As former mediators for Nagorno-Karabakh, the U.S., France and Russia have special responsibility.
The eight elected officials detained during the expulsion were wanted for what Azerbaijan called “terrorism,” a term that allows for carte-blanche negation of human rights. Other charges have been added, including “aggression,” “genocide,” and “military robbery.” They were arrested, humiliated in public, and jailed in Baku prisons along with fifteen other Armenian POWs and civilian men held hostage on trumped-up charges. These prisoners’ only “crime” is their Armenian nationality.
Populated by ethnic Armenians, Nagorno-Karabakh broke away from Soviet Azerbaijan in 1991, shortly before the Soviet Union collapsed. A ceasefire in 1994 ended a bloody three-year war between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and the disputed territory was self-governed until Azerbaijan’s decisive September 2023 offensive.
This offensive was preceded by an Azerbaijani starvation siege of the enclave. For nine months, multiple governments, the International Court of Justice, and other institutions urged Azerbaijan to end it. Azerbaijan ignored them with impunity.
Fair trials are a basic human right—one of the principles recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights accepted by all UN-member states. The right has been reaffirmed in legally binding treaties, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights that Azerbaijan signed in 1992.
These international obligations require that everyone in detention or facing criminal charges benefit from the right to a lawyer of their choice to protect their rights and to assist in their defense. Additionally, access to the outside world is an essential safeguard against human rights abuses such as torture or ill-treatment—vital to a fair trial. The right to a public hearing safeguards the fairness of the judicial process. None of these rights are granted the 23 political prisoners in Baku.
Azerbaijan’s appalling human rights record has been the subject of international concern and condemnation ever since it gained independence in 1991. Non-governmental organizations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, intergovernmental institutions such as the European Court of Human Rights and the UN Human Rights Council, and governments including the U.S., Canada, Germany and the United Kingdom have all repeatedly blasted Azerbaijan’s human rights failures. Some 200 political prisoners, Azerbaijan’s own citizens, have been detained arbitrarily and are subjected to torture.
The independence of courts in Azerbaijan is highly questionable and their impartiality is doubtful at best. Hatred for Armenians has become state policy, with government officials calling Armenians a “cancerous tumor” to be eliminated.
In such a toxic environment, it is far-fetched to expect a fair trial for Vardanyan or any of the other Armenian prisoners in Baku—but diplomatic observers at the trials could at least help mitigate some of the gross violations of the prisoners’ rights.
Hrair Balian has practiced conflict resolution for the past 35 years in the Middle East, Africa, Balkans, Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia. He has served in leadership positions with the UN, OSCE and the Carter Center.
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