← Back to the repository
Journal ArticleOpen Access

Ethnic Cleansing in Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh): Issues of Definition and Criminal Responsibility

Gzoyan, Edita; Chakhmakhchyan, Svetah, and Meyroyan, Edgar · 2023

After ten months of blockade-induced starvation and medical emergency, Artsakh was attacked by Azerbaijan on 19 September 2023 and its de facto state forced to capitulate. In the days that followed nearly 120,000 Armenians were forcibly displaced from their indigenous lands. International actors quickly reached for the label 'ethnic cleansing,' but no settled legal definition of that term exists, which creates problems of both characterization and responsibility. The article traces the historical and legal development of the concept and tests its application to the forced displacement of Armenians from Artsakh, setting it against the longer record of institutionalized anti-Armenian persecution and violence.

Read the publication ↗
Published in
International Journal of Armenian Genocide Studies, Vol. 8, No. 2, pp. 56–85 (Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute, Yerevan); DOI 10.51442/ijags.0045
Year
2023
Language
English
DOI
10.51442/ijags.0045

Citation

Gzoyan, Edita; Chakhmakhchyan, Svetah, and Meyroyan, Edgar 2023. Ethnic Cleansing in Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh): Issues of Definition and Criminal Responsibility. International Journal of Armenian Genocide Studies, Vol. 8, No. 2, pp. 56–85 (Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute, Yerevan); DOI 10.51442/ijags.0045. https://doi.org/10.51442/ijags.0045

What this offers a reader

For students

The definitional groundwork: what 'ethnic cleansing' actually means in law, and whether it fits 2023.

For academics

Peer-reviewed; three AGMI / Russian-Armenian University authors; strong on the gap between political labels and legal categories.

For the community

Gives us the legal vocabulary, and the limits of it, for what was done to Artsakh.

For a general reader

What the world called 'ethnic cleansing' in Artsakh, and what that phrase means legally.

Topics

Artsakhethnic cleansingforced displacementblockadeinternational criminal lawstate responsibility

Related in the repository

Slow-Burn Destruction: Reading "Conditions of Life" into Twenty-First Century Genocide
2025 · Journal Article
Justice for the Victims of the Nagorno–Karabakh Conflict: Ongoing Accountability Efforts and the Path to the International Criminal Court
2026 · Journal Article
Why Prevention Fails: Chronicling the Genocide in Artsakh
2023 · Journal Article
Legal and Political Aspects of the De-Armenization of Nagorno-Karabakh: Ethnic Cleansing, Genocide, Forced Displacement or Voluntary Exodus?
2024 · Journal Article

Citation checked against the publisher's record on .