From March 13 to 15, a course titled "Development of International Criminal Law in the Republic of Armenia" was held at the Academy of Justice.
Designed for investigators, prosecutors and other legal professionals, the course was led by Professor Dr. Christoph Zafferling, Director of the International Academy of the Nuremberg Principles, Darlene Seda, Senior Training and Capacity Development Officer, Senior Officer Kiran Mohandas Menon, as well as Philip Truehit, Executive Director of the International Criminal Investigation Institute, and Alexis Demirchyan, attorney at the Prosecutor's Office of the International Criminal Court.
In their lectures, they addressed the main principles of international criminal law, crimes against humanity, the influence of Armenian history on the legal concept of genocide, etc.
Siranush Sahakyan, the head of the International and Comparative Law Center, and Sona Azatyan, human rights lawyer of the Center, also participated in the training.
According to Sahakyan, since Armenia has recently ratified the Rome Statute and had full membership in the International Criminal Court, it can create many opportunities for Armenia to reveal the crimes of Azerbaijan and start cases against them in the court.
“Because there was no precedent for this in Armenia, we could not even appeal to them. In that context it is very important that all involved professionals are fully informed about how the court works, what procedures should be applied to it. The advantage of the course was that it explained in great detail how to make the process effective and bring potential criminals to justice, from filing a claim to the jurisdiction of the court," Azatyan said.
According to the lawyer, the course creates ways for professionals to cooperate, and creates the opportunity to understand that they can work together on a case.
The course also had a practical part, when we worked on the case created for the course - Azatyan said , adding - in this way, we, as human rights lawyers, have the opportunity to see how the prosecutor or investigator approaches this issue, as a result, we exchange experience and choose the best option.