Former Artsakh Republic Human Rights Defenders Gegham Stepanyan and Artak Beglaryan have sent a fifty-seven-page document to the International Criminal Court (ICC) to bolster their claim that Azerbaijan committed “crimes against humanity” when it attacked Artsakh in September 2023 and forcibly displaced the indigenous Armenian population.

The complaint was filed as a "communication" under Article 15 of the Rome Statute, which allows the ICC prosecutor to open an investigation based on the information provided.

According to the lawyers who filed the document with the ICC: "The deportation of Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh has all the characteristics of a crime against humanity. It was the forcible removal of persons from their place of legal residence as a large-scale assault against the civilian population, fully aware of its consequences. All conditions exist for those responsible for these crimes to be brought to justice within the framework of international criminal law."