BAKU, Azerbaijan, August 16. Luis Moreno Ocampo's anti-Azerbaijani "legal report" was designed to galvanize the support of a number of key states for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council, the Center for Analysis of International Relations of Azerbaijan (AIR Center) said, Trend reports.
As the analysis noted, Ocampo, a former prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), produced the so-called expert opinion entitled “Genocide against Armenians in 2023”, to which some international media outlets referred to without carrying out their own fact-finding research and creating a distorted picture of what is really happening.
In response, international law expert Rodney Dixon KC at the UK’s Temple Garden Chambers, provided his preliminary legal opinion on Ocampo’s report.
Dixon’s opinion refutes Ocampo’s allegations as unsubstantiated and manifestly lacking any credibility and notes that the report does not meet the exacting hallmarks of an impartial and rigorous expert analysis, which is essential for reporting of this kind, particularly when the circumstances are complex and sensitive. There is no basis for claiming that a genocide is currently being perpetrated in Karabakh, he said.
Meanwhile, the AIR Center said that Armenia has the right to bring a claim against Azerbaijan before the ICJ under the Genocide Convention; however, the fact that it did not bring such a claim indicates the lack of any evidence to support such serious allegations and the confidence in its own case.
"Unlike political bodies, the ICJ has serious evidentiary standards for proving the actus reus (act or omission) and the existence of the mens rea (intent) of the crime of genocide. Neither the Opinion nor the Armenian government did provide such evidence because it does not exist. In addition to Mr. Ocampo’s “dubious reputation” and prejudgment against Azerbaijan, the Opinion’s defects on legal and factual points calls on exercising strict scrutiny when utilized by international organizations, media outlets and judicial bodies," the center said.