Pashinyan: Armenia’s ratification of the Rome Statute is not directed against Russia

The process of ratification of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which Armenia has begun, is not connected with the relations between Yerevan and Moscow, but with the tension on the border with Azerbaijan. This was stated by the Prime Minister of the Republic Nikol Pashinyan on the air of the Public Television.

“We began ratification of the Rome Statute in December 2022. <...> Unfortunately, there has been an unfortunate coincidence in the context of relations between Russia and the ICC. It is necessary to fix that this process is not connected with Armenia-Russia relations, it is connected with border tension,” leads his words to Sputnik Armenia.

“This is another factor that can have a significant impact in terms of improving our security level in the conditions when the CSTO has not fulfilled and is not fulfilling its obligations to Armenia,” added He.

Armenia signed the Rome Statute in 1998, but has not ratified it. In 2004, the constitutional court of the republic recognized the obligations of the treaty as contradicting a number of provisions of the 1995 constitution. The Armenian government applied to the Constitutional Court with a request to retroactively recognize the jurisdiction of the ICC from May 2021 back in December 2022 – according to the Armenian authorities, this will allow calling on Azerbaijan to “responsibility for war crimes.”

On March 24, the Constitutional Court of Armenia decided that the obligations set out in the Rome Statute are in line with the fundamental law of the country. The Russian Foreign Ministry considered “absolutely unacceptable” Yerevan’s plans to join the Rome Statute against the backdrop of the position of this organization in relation to Russia. In September, the Armenian government sent Rome Statute to Parliament to consider ratification.

On September 8, the Russian Foreign Ministry summoned Armenian Ambassador to Moscow Vagharshak Harutyunyan and gave him a tough presentation after a series of unfriendly steps by Yerevan, which, among other things, include the ratification of the Rome Statute. On March 17, the Criminal Court in The Hague issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Children’s Ombudsman Maria Lvova-Belova. Press Secretary of the head of state Dmitry Peskov then said that the decisions of the ICC have no legal force and are void.