BAKU (Reuters) – Azerbaijan has filed a lawsuit against Armenia in the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague over what it says is evidence of extensive environmental destruction in areas of Azerbaijan once controlled by Yerevan.
The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Thursday that Armenia had engaged in “widespread deforestation, environmentally unsustainable logging, mining, and construction of hydropower plants” in regions Baku retook from Armenia following a series of wars stretching back to the late 1980s.
The affected areas include the Basut-Chay State Reserve, a protected forested zone near Azerbaijan’s southern border, home to the rare Oriental plane tree.
“Armenia’s actions and omissions have caused severe harm to the area’s habitats and species—harm which is, by its very nature, irreversible,” the Azerbaijani ministry said.
A spokesperson for the Armenian Foreign Ministry did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
Azerbaijan’s suit, filed in the Hague court on Wednesday, accuses Armenia of violating the 1979 Berne Convention, an international treaty protecting nature areas in Europe and some parts of Africa.
Azerbaijan ratified the treaty in 2000, and Armenia in 2008.
The two countries have fought a series of wars since the late 1980s over Nagorno-Karabakh, a region in Azerbaijan with a majority ethnic Armenian population which enjoyed de facto independence for three decades.
Baku retook Karabakh in a lightning offensive in September 2023, prompting almost all of the territory’s Armenian population to flee. Both sides have since said they want to sign a treaty to end the conflict.
The countries have no diplomatic ties and progress on peace talks has been slow. Their 1,000 km (620 miles) border remains closed and heavily militarised.
(Reporting by Nailia Bagirova; Writing by Lucy Papachristou; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
