The International Court of Justice (ICJ) said on November 12 that it had jurisdiction to consider rival cases by Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region.
"The Court finds that it has jurisdiction" to consider the cases filed in September 2021, a statement issued by the court said. The decision of the 17-judge panel was unanimous.
The Hague-based ICJ, the UN's top court, also ruled in favor of Armenia on two of its objections but rejected a third.
Armenia contends in its case that Azerbaijan violated the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD) and engaged in "ethnic cleansing" in the region.
Azerbaijan has denied the allegations and filed a countersuit. Baku also accused Yerevan of hate speech and "racist" propaganda.
The cases concern actions taken in Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous region within Azerbaijan populated mostly by ethnic Armenians. Armenia and Azerbaijan fought wars in the early 1990s and in 2020 for control of the enclave.
Baku took over the territory in September 2023 in a lightning one-day offensive that prompted nearly all of the local ethnic Armenian population of around 100,000 to flee for Armenia.
SEE ALSO: Despite The Warm Welcome, Karabakh Refugees In Armenia Are Struggling, Unsure Where To Go NextThe ICJ, which rules in disputes between states, issued emergency orders in December 2021 calling on both sides to prevent the incitement and promotion of racial hatred.
It has since considered various motions filed by both countries against each other's cases. Armenia returned to the UN court in 2023 in the weeks after Nagorno-Karabakh was seized by Azerbaijan.
The court did not say when the next hearings in the rival cases would take place. A ruling on the merits of the cases is expected to take years. While the ICJ's orders are binding, the court has no mechanism for enforcing them.