Yerevan /Mediamax/. Mass exodus of Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh meets the conditions for the war crime of “deportation or forcible transfer.”

Priya Pillai, international lawyer and Melanie O’Brien, visiting professor at the University of Minnesota and president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars told Reuters about it.

The International Criminal Court’s founding documents say that, when referring to forcible transfer or deportation, “the term ‘forcibly’ is not restricted to physical force, but may include threat of force or coercion, such as that caused by fear of violence, duress, detention, psychological oppression or abuse of power against such person or persons or another person, or by taking advantage of a coercive environment.”

Priya Pillai and Melanie O’Brien believe that such a “coercive environment” was created in Nagorno-Karabakh before the offensive by Azerbaijan, as Baku blocked the flow of food, fuel and medicines along the Lachin corridor.

Reuters notes that neither Armenia nor Azerbaijan belong to the International Criminal Court, the permanent tribunal for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.

O’Brian believes that the blockade was in effect the start of a genocide because it was implemented with the aim of “deliberately inflicting conditions of life designed to bring about the physical destruction of the targeted group.”

The first prosecutor of the ICC, Luis Moreno Ocampo, agreed with O'Brien’s argumentation, noting that a ruling of genocide did not require mass killings.

“For me, it’s obviously a genocide,” he said.