An Insider’s View: Unpacking Azerbaijan’s Cases against Armenian Civilian Leadership in Nagorno-Karabakh/Artsakh
Lecture by Siranush Sahakyan, human rights attorney representing Armenian POWs held in Azerbaijan, hosted by the Promise Institute for Human Rights at UCLA Law and co-sponsored by the UCLA Promise Armenian Institute, the Armenian Bar Association, the Armenian Legal Center for Justice and Human Rights, UCLA Law’s Armenian Law Students Association, and ANCA Western Region.
Thursday, September 24, 2026
5:30 PM – 7:00 PM
UCLA School of Law, Room 1347
Registration for this event is required and free.
Siranush Sahakyan, President of the International and Comparative Law Center, Yerevan, Armenia, will examine the criminal trials of Armenians in Baku in the wake of the 2023 war in Nagorno-Karabakh/Artsakh.
Sahakyan will address whether participation in the civilian, political, or administrative institutions of an unrecognized entity can, without proof of specific individual criminal conduct, be treated as criminal in itself.
Particular emphasis will be placed on the distinction between the Nagorno-Karabakh/Artsakh context—where neither the United Nations nor the international community collectively designated the entity itself as terrorist or inherently unlawful—and situations in which the Security Council or the international community has expressly called for collective non-recognition of an unlawful territorial situation or entity. The presentation will consider whether non-recognition alone can lawfully transform otherwise ordinary civilian or public activities into criminal conduct. A Q&A following the presentation will be moderated by The Promise Institute Los Angeles Executive Director Hadar Harris.
Siranush Sahakyan is a human rights lawyer and legal expert with more than 15 years of experience in human rights advocacy, judicial reform, anti-corruption policy, and strategic litigation. She has held senior public positions in Armenia and has served as an ad hoc Judge at the European Court of Human Rights.
She is the President of the International and Comparative Law Center, Armenia Director of the Armenian Legal Center for Human Rights and Justice, and a member of the Chamber of Advocates of Armenia. A founder of several civil society organizations, including Protection of Rights Without Borders, she has been actively engaged in advancing the rule of law, accountability, and human rights protection in Armenia.
Sahakyan has extensive experience litigating before international and regional human rights mechanisms, with a particular focus on war crimes, enforced disappearances, arbitrary detention, torture, and other grave human rights violations. She currently represents Armenian prisoners of war and their families in international proceedings and combines legal advocacy with documentation, policy engagement, and public outreach.
