States should raise human rights crisis in Azerbaijan during COP29

The UN Climate Change Conference COP29 kicks off in Baku on Monday, 11 November. Delegations, business leaders from around the world will be visiting Baku, a city where those living in it are suffering the effects of climate crisis and the impacts of oil exploration.

As Amnesty International underlined in a report published on 8 October 2024, “Since Azerbaijan was announced as the host of COP29 last December, the authorities have intensified their crackdown on the rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly. Independent civil society organizations have been closed and critics locked up under politically motivated charges, or forced into exile.”

Amnesty said that “states must exert pressure on the Azerbaijani authorities to reverse their clampdown on civil society, release those detained solely for peacefully exercising their right to freedom of expression, and ensure participants including activists and journalists can engage freely and fully in the event.”

Azerbaijani human rights defenders estimate that approximately 300 people remain in detention on politically motivated charges. These include human rights defenders, journalists, and environmental, political and other activists prosecuted under fabricated and/or politically motivated charges in retaliation for their criticism of the authorities. Activists have pointed to Azerbaijan’s record on human rights and its recently concluded war with Armenia. More than 100,000 people were displaced in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region after Azerbaijan launched an offensive last September.

A peace agreement was reached in late December but human rights campaigners say Azerbaijan still holds hundreds of political prisoners.

Azerbaijan has a catalogue of human rights violations against its population and against the Armenians of Nagorno-Kharabakh. By hosting this conference, the country – firmly in the hands of its president, Ilham Aliyev, is attempting to wash its crimes against humanity and the ethnic cleansing of Artsakh.

As Human Rights Watch pointed out: “Azerbaijan has an authoritarian government with the track record of intolerance towards dissent. In recent months the authorities escalated the crackdown against the remaining vestiges of independent civil society and media by arresting dozens of people on politically motivated, bogus criminal charges and through the arbitrary enforcement of highly restrictive laws regulating nongovernmental organizations. Those arbitrarily detained include an anti-corruption activist critical of Azerbaijan’s oil and gas sector and a human rights defender who co-founded an initiative that advocated civic freedoms and environmental justice in Azerbaijan ahead of COP29.”

So, questions come spontaneous: Can there really be a climate justice without human rights. Do the visitors and participants at COP29 know about the Armenian POWs in Baku, where people are allegedly being tortured and mistreated every day. Azerbaijan has a long standing record of limited freedom of speech, and the use of abusive laws.

It is because of these records that since it was confirmed that the COP29 was going to take place in Baku, activists demanded that participants openly call upon the government to respect its obligations toward human rights before respecting climate change, or maybe ask for the legal return of the Armenian citizens of Artsakh (Nagorno – Kharabakh).

Likewise, activists ask whether the participants to the summit are aware that two international jurists, Juan Ernesto Mendez and Luis Moreno Ocampo have concluded that the Azerbaijani military campaigns in 2020 and 2023 on Nagorno-Kharabakh amounts to genocide. Azerbaijani’s strategy was to inflict serious body and phycological harm on Armenians. They used starvation as a weapon of war, and denied the entry of any medical aid followed by forced displacement. These acts were compared to the Armenian Genocide during world war one and the Holocaust. Azerbaijani forces used sexual violence against Armenians, encouraged rape and murder of Armenian women. Human rights organization have also provided terrifying accounts of the physical and psychological abuse to the Armenian hostages still held in Baku.

Activists underline that states must press the Azerbaijani authorities to end assault on civil society. Since the announcement of the COP29 being held in Baku, the authorities have intensified their crackdown on the rights and freedom of expression, independent civil society organizations have been closed and activists have been locked up under false charges or forced to exile.

It is frustrating and a big hypocrisy to witness the COP29 being held in Azerbaijan, despite its use of illegal Arms in its war om the Republic of Artsakh and despite the fact that it caused an environmental disaster in that war. The use of this internationally banned weapons  targeted not only civilians but also large forest areas and caused massive fires.

Despite global calls to reduce fossil fuel reliance and transition to renewable energy, SOCAR is expanding its fossil fuel production aggressively, raising questions about Azerbaijan’s climate leadership, Air pollution from fossil fuels can cause acid rain, eutrophication (excessive nutrients that can harm aquatic ecosystems by lowering oxygen levels), damage to crops and forests, and harm to wildlife, fossil fuels can also lead to unintentional water pollution. New report on SOCAR ( the state oil company) highlights Azerbaijani’s Damming Fossil Fuel and Human rights record.

Maybe COP29 should be an opportunity for the participating government to demand the release of political prisoners, or perhaps at least to start investigating Azerbaijan’s repeated pattern of human rights abuse at home and abroad. It should also be an opportunity to ensure the return of the Armenians safely to Nagorno-Kharabakh.

In addition, Azerbaijan should decrease its state oil and gas production. Unfortunately, as activists pointed out, if participants won’t raise these issues, it would looks like COP29 is supporting the Petro-state invested in destruction of the planet.