Azerbaijan

Monthly Event Reports GSOD Indices

Azerbaijan is an overall low performing country in the South Caucasus, scoring in the bottom 25 per cent globally across all Global State of Democracy (GSoD) categories of democracy. Over the past five years, it has experienced a significant decline in Social Group Equality. The country’s government and economy have largely been controlled by the family and close associates of Presidents Heydar (1993-2003) and Ilham Aliyev (2003-present). A major player in the oil industry since the 19th century, Azerbaijan’s economy is dependent on petrochemical exports and industries that allow elites to recycle petrodollars domestically, such as in construction. The country’s defining political issue, dating back to its time as a part of the Soviet Union, has been the status of the self-declared independent Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, an ethnic Armenian enclave over which it has fought two wars with neighboring Armenia (1988-1994 and September-November 2020).

The First Nagorno-Karabakh War arose out of a movement for Karabakh Armenian independence during perestroika, which escalated into intercommunal violence, pogroms, and attacks on civilians. The war ended in an Azerbaijani defeat, widespread ethnic cleansing and population transfers, tens of thousands of deaths, the displacement of over one million Armenians and Azerbaijanis, and the formation of the unrecognized independent Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. After years of failed negotiations and frequent exchanges of fire along the line of contact, Azerbaijan took back much of the disputed territory and extracted significant further political concessions from both Armenia and the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic in the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War in 2020. The government has come under domestic and international criticism for its failure to provide adequate support to the significant number of internally displaced persons who remain.

Although it historically hosted large Russian, Armenian, Talysh, Jewish, and other minorities, wartime population transfers, outmigration, and assimilation have created a modern Azerbaijan that is over 90 per cent ethnic Azerbaijani; though nearly entirely Muslim, religion has historically played little role in Azerbaijani politics, a trend strengthened by the arising of a distinct secular Azerbaijani identity in the early twentieth century and the intentional ‘de-Islamization’ of public life under the Soviet Union. After decades of personalized authoritarian rule, much of the population is depoliticized, although small, but heavily suppressed opposition parties such as the national-conservative Popular Front Party, the pan-Turkist Musavat, and Shi’a Islamist Muslim Unity Movement maintain committed followings.

GSoD Indices data show Azerbaijan’s performance on gender equality at mid-range for the past three decades. Although women have long been enfranchised (since 1918) and equal rights are guaranteed by law, violence and gender inequalities that manifest in education, employment, and political participation continue to impact women. Furthermore, the increased visibility of feminist and LGBTQIA+ activists in recent years has been met with a violent backlash.

An influx of petrochemical wealth from the late 1990s through the mid-2000s following the construction of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline and the discovery of the Shah Deniz gas field enabled the ruling elite to entrench complete political and economic control over the country. Political opposition movements, human rights activists, and independent journalists are frequently jailed and persecuted, and election outcomes are preordained. Numerous bribery, embezzlement, and grand corruption scandals continue to taint the regime.

The reversal of fortunes brought about by the Second Karabakh War has not changed the volatile, decisive role the ongoing conflict has on Azerbaijan’s political trajectory. It remains unclear whether the government wishes to realize its long-stated goal of the reintegration of Nagorno-Karabakh and its ethnic Armenian population, or whether it seeks to maintain ongoing crisis to distract from domestic issues and dwindling petrochemical reserves. Shifting regional politics may lessen pressure on Azerbaijan to pay lip service to democratic norms, which could impact Fundamental Rights.

August 2023 | Former ICC prosecutor warns of genocide in Nagorno-Karabakh

Former Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court Luis Moreno Ocampo published a report arguing the ongoing Azerbaijani blockade of the disputed majority Armenian territory of Nagorno-Karabakh should be considered genocide on 7 August. On 15 August, the Nagorno Karabakh Human Rights Defender’s Office said a man had starved to death, marking the first death as a result of the months-long blockade which has prevented food, medicine, fuel, and electricity from reaching the region. A UN Security council meeting on the crisis on 16 August failed to result in a statement, as Azerbaijan’s close ally and non-permanent member Turkiye disputed Armenia’s claims and defended Azerbaijan’s justification to blockade the region.

Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict Genocide

July 2023 | Rural environmental protest garners international attention

A peaceful protest by villagers from Soyudlu in north-central Azerbaijan against the expansion of a local mining project, which villagers complained for years had severely damaged local water supplies, was met with overwhelming force by armed riot police on 20 June. Videos spread across the internet and prompted intense media coverage and interest from domestic and international rights advocates. Journalists and lawyers who travelled to Soyudlu were detained, interrogated, and allegedly assaulted by police. In a rare move, President Ilham Aliyev expressed his sympathy with the villagers at a 11 July cabinet meeting and called the local environmental situation “utterly unacceptable”, blaming the local mining company and the environmental ministry. However, Aliyev also praised the police’s conduct, and the town remains largely cut off from the outside world by a police cordon and local residents report a heavy police presence inside the town.

Protests Media Environmental Protection

June 2023 | Azerbaijan imposes total blockade on Nagorno-Karabakh

The Azerbaijani blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh in place since 12 December 2022 was expanded to include humanitarian convoys provided by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and Russian peacekeepers on 15 June, completely cutting the region off from the outside world. The expanded blockade exacerbated existing food and medicine shortages and prevented the ICRC from evacuating patients in need of urgent care; the blockade was lifted on 25 June for the ICRC, two days after Russian peacekeepers airlifted a critically ill one-year-old child to Armenia. The blockade has been criticized as illegal by the European Parliament. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accused Azerbaijan of holding Karabakh’s population hostage, and Armenian Prime Minster Nikol Pashinyan called the blockade “a policy of ethnic cleansing.”

Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict Blockade

May 2023 | Empty seats prompt representation concerns

Despite promises from the Central Election Commission and a campaign by an opposition party to hold legally mandated special elections, seven seats in Azerbaijan’s 125-member parliament have been vacant for between one and three years. The lack of elections has been criticized by the lone opposition party with representation in parliament, with analysts citing the even further decline of parliament as an actual decision-making or representative body. Local analysts credited both government disinterest in the resurgence of political activity that accompanies elections, as well as public apathy towards the country’s electoral processes, which have become progressively less free and credible over the last twenty years.

Legislature Democratic contraction