Last week, the Armenian government decided to pay more than 50 thousand euros to execute the 'Muradyan v. Armenia' ruling of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). In November 2016, the ECHR granted the complaint of the soldier's father and ordered the Republic of Armenia to pay compensation in the stated amount.
The plaintiff, the father of the deceased, an Armenian citizen Hrachya Muradyan, who lives in the village of Baghramyan, claimed that his son had died as a result of ill-treatment by his superiors. In addition, the plaintiff drew attention to the fact that an effective investigation into the death of a soldier, which came as a result of malaria, according to the official version, wasn't carried out. The ECHR's decision, posted on its official website, indicates that the court has sufficient evidence that "he sustained that injury as a result of ill-treatment by high-ranking officers, but this version was not considered in the framework of the official investigation." The ECHR decided that Article 2 (the right to life) and Article 3 (the prohibition of torture) and Article 13 (the right to an effective remedy) of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms were violated, and in accordance with Article 41 (just compensation), the court Obliged the Armenian government to pay compensation to the injured party in the amount of 50 thousand euros.
The ECHR decided that Armenia was at fault for not conducting an investigation into the death of a soldier of the Armenian army Suren Muradyan in Nagorno-Karabakh, taking into account the fact that Nagorno-Karabakh and adjacent territories are controlled by Armenia, the deaths of soldiers in Karabakh and their investigation are the jurisdiction of the Republic of Armenia.
The ECHR's decision also refers to its another decision of June 16, 2015 in the 'Chiragov and others v. Armenia' case, in which the court confirmed the fact of Armenia's control over the territory of the occupied Azerbaijan's territories - Nagorno-Karabakh and other adjacent areas. Such facts as the military exercises conducted by the Armenian Armed Forces in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan, military service by the citizens of Armenia in the conflict zone, Armenia's forming of illegal military formations, which vainly presented by Yerevan as 'the NKR self-defense forces', were taken into account by the ECHR and accepted as evidence of the fact that Armenia exercises control over these territories. Moreover, referring to the 1907 Hague Convention with respect to the Laws and Customs of War on Land and the 1949 Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, the court held that control refers to the notion of military occupation, recognizing the fact of Armenia's occupation of the Azerbaijani territories.
The special significance of these decisions of the ECHR is that the fact of Armenia's occupation of the Azerbaijani territories was recognized by the international judicial body, whose decisions are legally binding.
The head of the law enforcement section of the Azerbaijani Presidential Administration, Fuad Aleskerov, noted that "the European Court has put an end to the fictitious claims of Armenians. Armenia will not be able to say once again that the so-called 'Nagorno-Karabakh Republic' exists independently, and Yerevan is not responsible for its activities".
Initially, the legal inconsistency of Armenian's position in this issue was expressed in the fact that the state as the original, major and universal subject in international law has the key features inherent exclusively to it. These attributes include a sovereignty, a territory and a population. The first attempt to codify the international legal features of a state was given in the 1933 Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States (Uruguay). Article 1 of the Convention defines a state as a person in international law if it meets the following criteria:
1) a permanent population;
2) a defined territory;
3) a government;
4) a capacity to enter into relations with other states.
The so-called 'Nagorno-Karabakh Republic', established in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan as a result of the occupation policy of the Republic of Armenia, accompanied by ethnic cleansing of the Azerbaijani population, and which was not recognized by the subjects of international law - the states of the world community and international organizations, being under the control of the Republic of Armenia, did not have independent sovereign power and, accordingly, cannot be recognized as an independent political-territorial entity - a subject of international law. The decisions of the international judicial body - the European Court of Human Rights, which confirm the occupation of the territories of Azerbaijan by the Armenian armed forces, as well as the policy of ethnic cleansing against the Azerbaijani people ('Chiragov and others v. Armenia'), finally put an end to Armenian speculation on the issue of independence of the 'NKR' separatist puppet regime, confirming that there are only two sides in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict - Armenia and Azerbaijan.
