UN Working Group Chair on Vardanyan Has Questionable Links to Azerbaijan

· October 8, 2025

An expert opinion from the first Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno Ocampo, reveals a conflict of interest that invalidates the outcome of a UN decision into the detention of former Nagorno-Karabakh State Minister, Ruben Vardanyan, in Baku, Azerbaijan.

The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UNWGAD) is the body of independent experts appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHCR) to investigate cases where people are deprived of their liberty in violation of international human rights standards.

On February 17, 2025, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention integrated by Ganna Yudkivska, issued Opinion No. 46/2024 concluding that Ruben Vardanyan detention by Azerbaijan was not arbitrary.

Such opinion is contradicting the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mr Volker Türk who on March 3, 2025 presented to the Human Rights Council a different point view. He demanded that “all those arbitrarily detained in Azerbaijan, including ethnic Armenians, must be released immediately, and fair trial rights must be fully respected”.

Opinion No. 46/2024 is also exceptional in the Working Group jurisprudence. All the other 70 decisions adopted by the Working Group about 2024 claims favoured the claimants. In 69 cases the WGAD concluded that the detentions were arbitrary, the other was transmitted to the Committee against Torture, but the Working Group concluded that Ruben Vardanyan’s detention was not arbitrary.

An expert opinion from Luis Moreno Ocampo, the founder Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, shows that one of the independent experts, current Chair Rapporteur Ms. Ganna Yudkivska, has close commercial and personal links to Azerbaijan and should never have been allowed to take part in the decision.

The report reveals that Ganna Yudkivska is a member of Equity Law Firm, which represents the commercial interests of the State Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR) in Ukraine. Moreover, it reveals public records showing that Ms.Ganna Yudkivska’s half-Azeri husband, Georgii Logvynskyi, also has direct political ties to senior politicians in Azerbaijanand affirmed the right of Azerbaijan to remove the people from Nagorno-Karabakh from their ancestral land.

Ganna Yudkivska was appointed to the UNWGAD in October 2022. According to the UN’s rules, her ties to Azerbaijan should have precluded her from being a member of the Working Group in cases connected with Azerbaijan. Her work as a partner at Equity Law Firm establishes a direct financial link between her and the Azerbaijani Government, itself a party to the proceedings in Opinion No. 46/2024 Ruben Vardanyan (v. Azerbaijan).

Mr. Ocampo’s report reveals multiple contraventions of UN rules, including Articles 3(a), 3(d), 3(e), and 3(i) of the UN Code of Conduct which mandate independence, impartiality, integrity and the prohibition of private gain; as well as Regulation 2(h) of ST/SGB/2002/9 which requires recusal when financial interests overlap with United Nations functions. Ms. Yudkivska’s failure to disclose her role or to abstain from related proceedings further constitutes a breach of Paragraph 5 of the UNWGAD Methods of Work, which stipulates recusal in cases where conflicts of interest exist.

Commenting, former ICC Prospector, Luis Moreno Ocampo, said:

“These are gross contraventions of UN rules. Ganna Yudkivska’sprofessional, financial and family ties with Azerbaijan have compromised her impartiality. Someone with close ties to the ruling authorities in Baku should not have sat in judgement in any case relating to the ethnic Armenian people from Nagorno-Karabakh.”

He mentioned that Hasmik Egian made a similar comment on the decision calling it a “travesty of justice.”

The report finds further conflicts of interest relating to Ms. Ganna Yudkivska’s half-Azeri husband, Georgii Logvynskyi, a former Ukrainian politician who is widely quoted in media and public sources as supportive of Azerbaijan in the conflict with Nagorno-Karabakh. Mr Logvynskyi served in the Verkhovna Rada (the Ukrainian Parliament) from 2014 to 2019 as a member of the People’s Front party. He is currently under criminal investigation and subject to an arrest warrant issued by Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau in relation to a case that went before the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) when his wife was sitting as a judge there.

As an MP, Mr Logvynskyi, whose father was born in Goychay, Azerbaijan, was an active member of the Ukrainian Working Group on Interparliamentary Relations with Azerbaijan. In December 2016, he attended the 25th anniversary of Azerbaijan’s independence celebrations in Kiev; and in February 2017 he travelled to Azerbaijan with the Ukrainian Parliamentary Working Group. In media interviews to mark his appointment as Vice-Chair of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) in January 2017, Mr Logvynskyi is quoted as saying that “Azerbaijan is always in my heart”; and that “without a doubt, Nagorno-Karabakh is an integral part of Azerbaijan”. Ruben Vardanyan was detained for his role protecting Nagorno-Karabakh.

On 20 March 2024 when the American lawyer representing Ruben Vardanyan, Jared Genser, first filed the case before the UNWGAD, no information existed on UN information systemsthat pointed to the relationship between Ganna Yudkivska and her employer, Equity Law Firm. However, on 18 September 2023, Equity Law Firm had registered her as a partner with the firm using a different spelling, “Hanna Yudkivska”. And furtherto that, the official records of both the UNWGAD and ECHR, where she is also registered, cite her name as “Yanna Yudkivska”.

Lawyers working for Ruben Vardanyan now have the option ofrequesting a revision of the previous decision, or asking for anew petition demanding that Ms. Ganna Yudkivska recuse herself from proceedings in relation to Opinion No. 46/2024 Ruben Vardanyan (v. Azerbaijan).

Other lawyers are also preparing additional cases to be brought before the UN to expose the illegality of the ongoing detention by Azerbaijan of the 23 people from Nagorno-Karabakhcurrently being held in Baku.

Without any further request, the WGAD could provide more information on how this case was managed, who served as the case rapporteur and how they were selected.

Notes:

• Ruben Vardanyan is a businessman, philanthropist and public figure who from November 2022 until February 2023 served as State Minister in Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh government). He was arbitrarily arrested by Azerbaijani forces on 27 September 2023, as he attempted to escape from Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia following Azerbaijan’s military attack.

• A succession of human rights bodies have cited serious concerns about the aggression of Azerbaijani forces against Nagorno-Karabakh and the subsequent detention of political leaders, including Mr. Vardanyan:

o At the time of the take-over by Azerbaijan in September 2023, the UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide warned about the risk of genocide against the people of Nagorno-Karabakh.

o The UN High Commissioner for Human Rightsstated on 3 March 2025 that “all those arbitrarily detained in Azerbaijan, including ethnic Armenians, must be released immediately, and fair trial rights must be fully respected” (referring to the individualsdetained during the 2023 aggression, including Mr. Vardanyan).

o The International Court of Justice (ICJ)’s provisional measures of 17 November 2023 ordered Azerbaijan to ensure that all “persons who remained in Nagorno-Karabakh after 19 September 2023 or returned to Nagorno-Karabakh and who wish to stay are free from the use of force or intimidation that may cause them to flee”.

o The European Parliament has adopted several consecutive resolutions on the matter, such as Resolution 2023/2879(RSP) of 5 October 2023, which considered “a gross violation of human rights and international law […] [which] amounts to ethnic cleansing […] the threats and acts of violence committed by Azerbaijani troops against the population of Nagorno-Karabakh”.