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