I normally agree with @TomRuys_Law (and @frsilvestre) about jus ad bellum issues, but I disagree that #Azerbaijan cannot invoke self-defence against #Armenia to recover territory Armenia is illegally occupying in #NagornoKarabakh. https://www.justsecurity.org/73310/the-nagorno-karabakh-conflict-and-the-exercise-of-self-defense-to-recover-occupied-land/

2. It’s a very difficult issue, one with little state practice. (The authors cite mostly scholars.) I have two disagreements. The first, which they address, is that I don't think an occupation that has been condemned for decades as unlawful constitutes a “territorial dispute.”

3. To suggest otherwise simply rewards the illegal occupier for being able to ignore international condemnation. Or, to put it another way: any territorial dispute over N-K has long since been adjudicated — and Armenia lost. It is simply refusing to comply with the decision.

4. My second objection is that the authors’ position simply rewards a powerful state that can maintain an illegal occupation indefinitely — until the occupied state loses its right of self-defence. The authors never explain how we know when the initial armed attack ends.

5. Presumably, whether the occupied state is no longer able to resist is relevant. But if so, that simply encourages powerful states to use massive force during the occupation — ending resistance means the clock will be ticking on the occupied state’s right of self-defence.

6. Indeed, the authors say that “[w]hat seems to matter most is the existence of a territorial status quo, characterized by a prolonged absence of fighting.” So powerful occupiers are advantaged over weaker ones. I don’t see how that is fair or promotes peace and security.

7. All of which to say is that the notion of a “continuing armed attack” is both theoretically and practically more convincing. After all, an illegal occupation is a serious violation of the occupied state’s territorial and political independence at every moment of it existence.

8. There is only one way that serious violation ends: when the illegal occupier leaves. Until then, the occupied state should have a right of self-defence against the occupier to recover territory that, according to the international community, indisputably belongs to it.

9. I also have a question for the authors: what happens if the occupied state *does* use force to try to regain its territory? Presumably that would be an armed attack against the occupying state, entitling the occupying state to itself act in self-defence.

10. So the occupying state has the right to use force — in “self-defence” — to maintain its illegal control over the occupied state’s territory. That hardly seems consistent with any notion of sovereignty, territorial integrity, or the ex iniuria jus non oritur principle...