ICJ to hold hearing on Armenia, Azerbaijan in October

The UN’s top court on Thursday said it will hold hearings on October 18 and 19 on the case between arch foes Armenia and Azerbaijan, which accuse each other of racial discrimination.

“The hearings will focus on the request for provisional measures submitted by the Republic of Azerbaijan,” the Hague-based International Court of Justice said in a statement.

A week after Armenia filed an application against Azerbaijan at the ICJ, Baku filed a counter complaint against its neighbour on September 23, accusing it of racial discrimination and “ethnic cleansing”.

Echoing Yerevan’s appeal, Baku claims that Armenia has violated the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.

Azerbaijan is asking the ICJ to impose emergency measures to “protect Azerbaijanis” while the application is being considered.

The ICJ is the highest judicial body of the United Nations and settles disputes between states.

Its decisions are final, but it has no means other than diplomacy to enforce them.

Armenia and Azerbaijan on Monday marked the first anniversary of their war last autumn for control of Nagorno-Karabakh, which left more than 6,500 people dead in the enclave, already the subject of a bloody war in the 1990s.

The autumn conflict ended in defeat for Armenia, which was forced to cede large parts of the territory.

Despite the signing of a ceasefire and the deployment of Russian peacekeepers, tensions remain high between the two former Soviet republics.