Lawyer Siranush Sahakyan was awarded the "Lawyer of the Year 2024" award at the third annual international conference entitled "Human Rights and Accountability, Paths of Post-conflict Justice" held in Yerevan on September 11-13.
As part of the conference organized by the "Truth and Justice Center", international law specialists and human rights defenders from Europe and the USA arrived in Armenia.
"In our profession, we have a unique privilege to fight for justice. This award reaffirms my commitment to continue the struggle for increasing the protection of Armenians” - said S. Sahakyan, adding, "This is an extremely important achievement for me, because it reflects not only my work, but also the principles of justice that I strive to uphold every day."
September marks one year of ethnic cleansing of Artsakh by Azerbaijan. The purpose of the conference is to address the issues of how to achieve lasting peace in a post-conflict situation.
On the first day of the conference, the role and responsibilities of States parties to the International Criminal Court and strategies to strengthen the representation and support of victims in international criminal justice were discussed.
On the second day, there were panel discussions on "Global Approaches to Prosecuting International Crimes and Universal Jurisdiction", "Overcoming Challenges and Innovations in International Criminal Law" and "Towards Truth, Justice and Reparations: from the point of view of the international commissions of claim submissions.
On the third day, the panel discussions were on the following topics: "Nagorno-Karabakh in the news, or its absence", "Expanding human rights", "Azerbaijan and the COP29 summit".