Lawyers from both sides begin two weeks of hearings to argue their interpretations of international law in the Peace Palace of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague. The legal battle before the ICJ dates back to September 2021, when the two countries filed complaints against each other within the space of a week.
The two neighbors accuse each other of “ethnic cleansing” and violation of International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD) The ICJ, which adjudicates disputes between states, issued emergency orders in December 2021, calling on both sides to prevent the incitement and promotion of racial hatred. But while theICJ's decisions are binding, it has no means of enforcing them and tensions have increased, culminating in Azerbaijan's blitzkrieg offensive last September in the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. The former Soviet republics fought two wars for control of this mountainous region, which claimed thousands of lives and caused hundreds of thousands to flee.