Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry announced on Tuesday that Baku on February 27, 2023, launched inter-state arbitration against Armenia under The Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) for illegal exploitation of energy resources.
Armenia was served with a Notice of Arbitration in which Baku seeks redress and financial compensation for Armenia’s violation of its sovereign rights over its energy resources.
As the document notes, the violation was exercised during Armenia’s nearly 30-year-long illegal occupation – from 1991 to 2020- of Azerbaijani territories, putting the accent of Azerbaijan’s inter-state ECT claims against Armenia on the latter’s illegal exploitation of the Karabakh region’s rich hydropower resources.
The document also accuses Armenia of exploiting Azerbaijan’s energy resources for its own benefit and preventing Baku from further developing its energy resources in line with its national energy policy and environmental commitments.
Per Baku’s claims, by denying Azerbaijan from accessing its energy resources in the Karabakh region through military force, Armenia has violated multiple provisions of the ECT and fundamental principles of international law.
The Karabakh region is an optimal location to leverage for hydroelectrical power since it contains 25% of Azerbaijan’s internal water resources.
The Tartar hydro-electricity plant (Tartar HEP) on the Tartar River’s Sarsang reservoir is key among the hydropower assets Armenia is illegally exploiting since it captured – as part of its armed aggression against Azerbaijan’s sovereign territory- the Tartar HEP and the Sarsang Reservoir in 1994.
During the occupation, as the document claims, Armenia also constructed at least 37 additional unauthorized hydropower facilities on Azerbaijan’s sovereign territory the output of which – along with the electricity generated by the Tartar HEP- was expressly designated “an avenue of export” to Armenia.
At the same time, Armenia also illegally extracted coal from the Chardagly mine- in Azerbaijan’s Tartar district – it used in the Yerevan thermal power plant in Armenia.
