Barış Antlaşmalarında Savaş Tazminatı ve Karabağ Sorununa Yansımaları

Abstract

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia, which has a long history, turned into a war after both states gained their independence in 1991. Following the Second Karabakh War in September 2020, a treaty of armistice was signed between the parties, which stopped the war.

A treaty of armistice is recognised in international law as a step towards the signing of a peace treaty. However, the treaty of armistice does not end the war, it only suspends military conflicts for a period of time. It is the peace treaty that ends the war. A peace treaty is an agreement that puts an end to the war or armed conflict and signed with the aim of re-establishing peace relations between the parties. One of the most important issues regulated in the peace treaty is the determination of war reparation in order to compensate for the damages caused by the war. War reparation, which is regulated especially in the peace treaties signed after World Wars I and II, is nowadays evaluated as a sub-type of the reparation obligation arising within the framework of the responsibility of the state. In practice, it is accepted to pay war reparation both in cash and in kind. As a matter of fact, in the Lausanne Peace Treaty, Türkiye took back the Karaağaç region from Greece as reparation in kind for the damages suffered.

In this framework, one of the most important issues of the peace treaty to be signed between Azerbaijan and Armenia will be war reparations. This is because Armenia has caused serious material and moral damages to Azerbaijan, both during the First and Second Karabakh Wars and during the 30-year occupation. This gives Azerbaijan the right to demand reparations in cash and/or in kind for the damages suffered as a result of the war. In this thesis, the legal basis of Azerbaijan’s right to demand war reparations in peace treaty negotiations will be discussed.