Legal expert Aram Orbelyan emphasized that Armenia currently holds powerful legal tools that will be neutralized if the country withdraws from its international lawsuits, Sputnik Armenia reports.

He stated that dropping these cases would end Azerbaijan’s status as a legal violator: “There are existing court decisions with provisional measures that Azerbaijan has violated. This makes Azerbaijan a violator of international law. If the lawsuits are dropped, those decisions become void, Azerbaijan ceases to be a violator, and stops breaching both international law and court rulings.”

Orbelyan noted that within current legal proceedings, Artsakh has been regarded as a subject of self-determination. He pointed to the OSCE Minsk Group's mandate documents as containing phrasing that reinforces the legal foundation of Artsakh’s subjectivity.

While technically new lawsuits could be filed in the future, the rights affirmed under the current cases would no longer apply. “We could sue again, but the existing rulings—mentioning Artsakh, Berdzor, the Armenian population, the right to avoid blockade, the right to live on one’s land and return—would no longer hold. If we file new suits without Artsakh existing, we’ll be in a completely different legal context,” he explained.

Moreover, Orbelyan stated that by filing inter-state cases, Armenia effectively barred individuals from pursuing justice through personal international claims. Many current suits include issues related to prisoners and missing persons, and dropping them would deprive those affected of justice.

“Not only does Armenia fail to protect its citizens’ rights, now it’s concealing violations and allowing Azerbaijan to trample them without consequence,” Orbelyan added.

The issue of abandoning inter-state disputes was raised publicly during Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s press conference on January 13. He stated that discussions with Azerbaijan on this matter were ongoing, and he believed escalation could not be controlled without mutual withdrawal. On March 13, it was announced that Armenia and Azerbaijan had finalized the text of a peace agreement, including clauses on removing international missions from border areas and withdrawing existing lawsuits. The following day, Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan confirmed that both parties had committed to retracting their cases and refraining from future legal claims related to pre-agreement matters.