Azerbaijan raises issue of ensuring IDPs’ rights before UNSC

Azerbaijan’s Permanent Representative to the UN Agshin Mehdiyev made the remarks when addressing a Security Council open debate on Thursday, the UN News Center reported.

Mehdiyev reaffirmed his delegation’s commitment to an international order based on the rule of law and international law.  “While more attention was being paid to such issues, greater efforts were needed to ensure a unified approach to the rule of law to address major threats and challenges that continued to affect the basic elements of the international legal order, undermined national unity and the territorial integrity of States, and which promoted a disregard for human rights norms,” he said.

 He stated that it was an “absolute priority” to ensure strict compliance by parties to armed conflict with their obligations under international humanitarian and human rights law.  Indeed, law and justice were more important than force and that fact the illegal situations continued because of political disagreements did not mean that such situations were, therefore, rendered legal.

Efforts to promote the rule of law must take into account the situation of the most vulnerable, including women, children and displaced persons, he noted. Ensuring the right of return constituted a categorical rejection of ethnic cleansing and offered an important measure of justice to those that had been displaced from their homes and lands. As the Secretary-General had pointed out in his report, reparations mechanisms that compensated returnees for the illegal occupation of their property had shown promising results and should be replicated. 

Turning to the combat against impunity, Mehdiyev said that justice was a fundamental building block to sustainable peace and, as such, mechanisms that provided access to it should be further strengthened.  Peace talks or mediation efforts should never promise amnesty or encourage any forms of immunity for the most serious crimes of concern in international law.  Here, he emphasized the responsibility of States to comply with their obligations to end impunity and to thoroughly investigate and prosecute persons responsible for such crimes.

Emphasizing the importance of the rule of law as one of the key elements of conflict prevention, peacekeeping, conflict resolution and peacebuilding, the Security Council pledged its commitment to upholding international law, and reaffirmed its strong opposition to exempting from punishment those responsible for committing serious violations of humanitarian and human rights norms.

The Council recognized the need for enhanced efforts aimed to build the capacity of justice and security institutions, and noted also the need for increased efforts to ensure that conflict-affected countries were able to access a broad range of relevant expertise, from developing countries in particular, in order to effectively build the capacity of those vital institutions.

Reaffirming its strong opposition to impunity for serious violations of international law, the Council emphasized the responsibility of States to comply with the relevant obligations to end impunity, investigate thoroughly and prosecute persons responsible for war crimes, genocide and other serious violations.  To that end, the Council reiterated its call regarding the importance of State cooperation with the International Criminal Court, ad hoc mixed tribunals, as well as national tribunals, in the fight against impunity for the world’s most serious crimes.


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