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24 Hum. Rts. Brief 147 (2020-2021)
Toward Permanent Peace and Stability in Artsakh

handle is hein.journals/huribri24 and id is 171 raw text is: 147 ARTICLES TOWARD PERMANENT PEACE AND STABILITY IN ARTSAKH by George S. Yacoubian, Jr. The Nagorno-Karabakh war is an ethnic, religious, and territorial conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed region of Artsakh, an Armenian enclave within Azerbaijan. The modern conflict began in 1988 when Armenians demanded that Artsakh be transferred from Soviet Azerbaijan to Soviet Armenia. The dispute escalated into a full-scale war in the early 1990s. A ceasefire signed in 1994 provided for two decades of relative stability, but escalations in April 2016, and most recently in October 2020, have renewed the antagonism. More than 30 years have passed with no resolution, costing thousands of lives, millions of dollars, and unfathomable anguish. All interested parties have failed, including the competing nations, the international community, and the Armenian diaspora. In the current essay, I propose multiple potential solutions to the Artsakh conflict, with a permanent recommendation grounded in pragmatism and traditional peacekeeping principles. Armenia's withdrawal from the remaining areas of Artsakh, in exchange for renumeration from Azerbaijan, financial and military assistance from the European Union, and financial and logistical assistance from Azerbaijan, the European Union, and the United States with relocation of Artsakh Armenians to Armenia proper, would signal an end to unnecessary human suffering. As an Armenian living in the diaspora whose grandparents survived the 1915 Armenian Genocide, the inclination to cede territory that is inhabited almost exclusively by ethnic Armenians is anathema to me. That said, my personal contempt for aggression against Armenia and fellow Armenians must be tempered by the international legal reality and the cumulative and overwhelming humanitarian crisis in the region. What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others. ~ Pericles I. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND Armenia is a small, landlocked nation bordered by Turkey to the west, Georgia to the north, Iran to the south, and Azerbaijan to the east. The area stands at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. While Armenia emerged as a democracy with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in September 1991, its modern history includes significant victimization by the Ottoman Empire,' which is critical to understanding the current conflict with Azerbaijan. By the 1800s, the once powerful Ottoman Empire began to decline. For centuries, Turkey spurned technological and economic progress while the nations of Europe had embraced innovation and become industrial giants.2 While the Greeks, Serbs, and Romanians achieved independence, Armenians remained mired in the backward empire under the autocratic rule of Sultan Abdul Hamid.3 By the 1890s, young Armenians pressed for political reforms, calling for a constitutional government, * George S. Yacoubian, Jr., has advanced degrees in Criminology and Criminal Justice, a J.D. from the Rutgers University School of Law, an LL.M. in Transnational Law from the Temple University School of Law, and an S.J.D. from the Suffolk University School of Law. He is a graduate student in the Department of Negotiation and Conflict Resolution at Columbia University and specializes in criminal defense law, international criminal law, and interna- tional child protection law. Direct all correspondences to George S. Yacoubian, Jr., 150 N. Radnor Chester Road, Suite F200, Radnor, PA 19087, george@yacoubian-law.com. 1RICHARD G. HOVANISSIAN, ARMENIAN GENOCIDE IN PERSPEC- TIVE 19-38 (1st ed. 1986). 2VAHAKN DADRIAN, WARRANT FOR GENOCIDE 39-45 (1999). 3 Id. Vol. 24 Issue 3

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