The Karabakh Dilemma: Right to Self-Determination, Imperative of Territorial Integrity, or a Caucasian New Deal?

Abstract

At the time of this writing more than 16 years have elapsed since the cease-fire which brought the military conflict around Nagorno-Karabakh to an end. Sixteen years of uncertainty — for the people of Karabakh, for the hundreds of thousands who were displaced by the conflict on both sides, and for Armenia and Azerbaijan. Sixteen years of talks and negotiations, of propos-als and counter-proposals, of conferences and colloquia. Sixteen years after the war, the status quo appears like the best option still — because one of the alternatives might well be another war. The first armed conflict between 1992 and 1994 killed around 30,000 persons, both soldiers and civilians. A remake of the Karabakh war could turn out to me more deadly still.