Skip to content Skip to footer

Isn’t Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabagh) entitled to the same right to self-determination as America, France, Kosovo, and others?

Introduction- The Value of Independence

This Independence Day, known colloquially as the Fourth of July, America celebrated the 247th anniversary of her Declaration of Independence. The Second Continental Congress ratified this Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. This is the most critical date when the United States of America became an independent nation. America chose self-determination with this historic, meaningful, and timeless unanimous declaration of the original 13 states. 

While the French Revolution, celebrated on July 14, known colloquially as “Bastille Day,” is different from the American Revolution and the Declaration of Independence, the symbolic siege of the seat of the “Ancien Regime” (Old Regime or the King) signaled the victory of the People of Paris against tyranny establishing self-determination.

Enlightenment and Declaration of Independence

The Enlightenment theories of ethics, psychology, and social constructs inspired the Declaration of Independence and the French Revolution. The ideals of a social contract were sharply contrasted with the tyrannical central power of a chosen few. Locke and Bentham in England, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Voltaire, Diderot in France, and Paine and Jefferson in America sharply criticized the authoritarian state, arguing for a social organization based on natural rights functioning as what we know to be a democracy. Jefferson and the founders of America particularly enshrined natural rights into the first ten amendments of the United States Constitution, known as the “Bill of Rights.

The words of self-determination found in the Declaration of Independence were powerful. 

“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.” 

International Law and Treaties

Not surprisingly, the American Declaration set the tone for developing international law on human rights. Self-determination is a core principle of international law, arising from customary international law, but also recognized as a general principle of law and protected in several international treaties.  

Today, The right to self-determination is contained in Article 1 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and Article 1 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. Self-determination is also found in the United Nations (UN) Charter in Article 1 Section 2, which establishes that one of the primary purposes of the United Nations, and thus the Security Council, is to develop friendly international relations based on respect for the “principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples.” Article 2 of the same Charter prohibits threats or use of force and calls on all nations to respect other states’ sovereignty, territorial integrity, and political independence. 

The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights article 15 states that everyone has the right to a nationality and that no one should be arbitrarily deprived of or denied the right to change nationality.

Kosovo’s self-determination

“Benefiting from this history and international law on self-determination, Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia for the second time on February 17, 2008, the first being proclaimed but remaining unrecognized on September 7, 1990. Serbia again disputed the validation of the 2008 declaration. The International Court of Justice, in an advisory opinion dated July 22, 2010, concluded: “that the adoption of Kosovo’s declaration of independence of February 17, 2008, did not violate general international law.” The Court citing the UN Security Council Resolution 1244 of 1999, said, “The international law of self-determination developed in such a way as to create a right to independence for the peoples of non-self-governing territories and peoples subject to alien subjugation, domination, and exploitation” and that “a great many new States have come into existence as a result of the exercise of this right.” 

Right to Independence

In November 2020, I wrote a short piece, “Lasting Peace in the Caucasus can only be achieved with a collaborative frame.” In that article, I cited the law the people of Artsakh used for self-determination in 1991, the same direction that every “independent state of the former Soviet Union,” including Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan, used to declare their independence. Like Serbia’s rejection of Kosovo’s first declaration, Azerbaijan refused to recognize the declaration, which resulted in the war of 1991, where the people of Artsakh secured their land, which they had occupied for several millennia. Sadly, encouraged by its ally Turkey, Azerbaijan, aided by several countries including Israel and Turkey, launched an unprovoked offensive to occupy most of Artsakh. Today what remains of Artsakh is under a complete blockade by the Azeri military for more than 200 days. 

Instead of supporting Artsakh’s right under international law for self-determination, every country, including the United States and France, has become tone-deaf in not hearing the cries of 120,000 ethnic Armenians trapped in their land. 

Question to the world?

If self-determination denotes the legal right of people to decide their own destiny in the international order, and if Self-determination is a core principle of international law and good for the United States, France, and Kosovo, then why are all these political gymnastics jeopardizing the lives of ethnic Armenians of Artsakh? 

No one, including Armenia, has the right to subjugate the people of Artsakh to the proven ill will of an authoritarian. The Republic of Artsakh must be allowed to negotiate its destiny for independence. As France celebrates “Bastille Day,” I ask President Macron to think about the phrase inscribed in the Pantheon, “Vivre Libre ou Mourir.”