Azerbaijan and the Council of Europe: a return through the back door?

The Palace of Europe in Strasbourg houses the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. Photo: Shutterstock

Despite increasing repressions at home, Azerbaijan formally remains a member of the Council of Europe, though engaging only with selected branches of the institution. No one seems to be interested in changing the status quo. This approach not only undermines the legitimacy of the institution as a whole but also dashes hopes of Azerbaijani political prisoners regaining their freedom.

Can you have your cake and eat it too? Azerbaijan has proven that it is possible in the Council of Europe. At least for now. A year ago, it seemed that Baku’s 24-year presence in the largest organization on the European continent, established to protect democracy and human rights, was inevitably coming to an end. In January 2024, the Azerbaijani delegation was suspended for 12 months for persistent violations of Council of Europe standards; the persecution of the opposition and independent media; and actions in Nagorno-Karabakh that led to the mass exodus of Armenians.

Unhappy with the growing criticism, the Baku authorities responded by temporarily withdrawing from the work of many Council of Europe institutions. At the same time, repression against independent news outlets and civil society activists intensified in the country. There was increasing speculation that Azerbaijan would follow Russia’s example and leave the organization.

However, instead of carrying out the threats, the administration of President Ilham Aliyev, who is serving his fifth term, chose a different strategy: returning through the back door. This would be done on his own terms.

“Azerbaijan cherry-picks who it wants to cooperate with and in which areas. It does not want criticism from the Parliamentary Assembly – the only political body within the Council of Europe that dared to point out Baku’s unprecedented violations of human rights. It is not willing to discuss political prisoners in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) or cooperate with the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT). But it is open to working with other associated institutions of the Council of Europe,” explains the Swiss human rights activist Florian Irminger, head of the Campaign to End Repression in Azerbaijan.

Meanwhile, in a recent speech at an international conference in Baku titled “Facing the New World Order”, President Ilham Aliyev reiterated his view that “PACE punished Azerbaijan for restoration of its territorial integrity” and made it clear Azerbaijan rejects its criticism on human rights issues and continues to see the stance of the institution as “biased.”

The key institution tacitly tolerating the cherry-picking approach in the case of Azerbaijan is the Committee of Ministers, the executive body of the Council of Europe. It was the representatives of individual member states who argued from the beginning that PACE had gone too far by launching the nuclear option to suspend the Azerbaijani delegation. The Committee postulated that dialogue is the most important thing and that it is not worth irritating Baku. Although in the case of Georgia, the majority supports a policy of a hard line.

A similar position was taken by the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, Alain Berset, who visited Baku as part of the November COP29 climate summit. The official press release from Berset’s office about the visit did not mention the wave of arrests of journalists and activists. The secretary himself emphasized “Azerbaijan’s significant contribution to interreligious and intercultural dialogue” and stressed the need for talks.

Encouraged by friendly messages from the Committee of Ministers and the Secretary General, Baku has therefore returned to the game halfway. This has happened without any political costs.

Negotiations have recently begun on a new Action Plan, a four-year programme which officially ended in February 2025. The new one is supposed to start in May and preparations are currently underway to establish a list of priorities and cooperating institutions. Against the background of the ongoing persecution of dissidents by the authorities, the Action Plan, whose main goal is to improve human rights standards, looks exceptionally grotesque. This is all the more so because the need for the authorities to approve the plan prevents the participation of independent individuals and organizations, and there is no political will to introduce changes.

PACE MPs are watching all these events unfold with surprise, ruling out the admission of the Azerbaijani delegation to the parliamentary benches without the release of political prisoners.

The authorities in Baku had a chance to return to PACE during the winter session in January 2025. Azerbaijan, however, did not send a new parliamentary delegation to Strasbourg, aware that it would not win the approval of the assembly members. In theory, it still had time until March, when the six-month deadline for submitting a delegation expires but after the September parliamentary elections. It is worth noting that the group has not even been formed at the national level. This suggests that returning to PACE was not a realistic plan, at least in the short term.

According to anonymous sources from Baku, behind-the-scenes negotiations were still ongoing until autumn 2024 regarding the return to PACE in exchange for the release of some political prisoners, invitations for MPs to observe the elections, and enabling official visits by rapporteurs. However, the talks were supposed to have suddenly been broken off.

It is said behind the scenes that one of the reasons was the so-called blacklist of PACE MPs who voted in January 2024 to suspend the Azerbaijani delegation. All of them were declared persona non grata in Azerbaijan. The authorities in Baku officially admitted that such a list existed, which outraged the parliamentarians and was supposed to lead to the failure of the negotiations.

As a result, Azerbaijan remains outside the Parliamentary Assembly. Paradoxically, it is not Baku, but PACE that must now face the consequences of its own decisions and unexpected criticism from within the institution.

“PACE has now become the black sheep in the Council of Europe family. Yet it was this body that had the courage to take a brave stance on Azerbaijan’s violation of institutional standards. Other institutions do nothing, and even welcome the fact that Azerbaijan has returned to cooperation,” assesses Harry Hummel, a representative of the Cure campaign, a coalition of European non-governmental organizations whose goal is to improve the effectiveness of the Council of Europe’s activities.

“I understand that the Secretary General is focused on resolving the crisis through diplomacy, but together with the Commissioner for Human Rights, he should defend the PACE decision and explain why cooperation with the Assembly is necessary. Dialogue should lead to concrete results. And since no positive changes are visible, it may be worth considering a change of approach,” adds Hummel.

In search of political will

In theory, the Council of Europe has several mechanisms to respond to persistent violations of the rules by a member state.

One of them is the so-called “joint supplementary procedure”, which is launched in the event of a serious breach of statutory obligations. It can be initiated by the Secretary General, the Committee of Ministers, or the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe – in the final case a qualified majority of two-thirds of the votes is required. The procedure involves sending a high-level mission to the country in question and developing a road map for the remedial process. However, if the authorities refuse to cooperate, the final step may be the final exclusion of the problematic member.

“Unfortunately, neither the Secretary General nor the Committee of Ministers are interested in launching this procedure, because there is a significant risk that it would end with Azerbaijan being expelled from the Council of Europe – something that almost all member states want to avoid. The Parliamentary Assembly, on the other hand, was not certain whether it would be possible to obtain two thirds of the votes, which is why it decided to suspend the delegation for a year,” explains Harry Hummel.

A more diplomatic tool could involve intervention under Article 52 of the European Convention on Human Rights. This provision allows the Secretary General to open an investigation if there are grounds to believe that a member state has seriously violated the provisions of the convention.

“When a member state, Azerbaijan or another country, increases repression to an unprecedented level and has the largest number of political prisoners in the history of its membership of the Council of Europe, the institution must react. The easiest and fastest way is for the Secretary General to launch an investigation under Article 52. The final report would quickly establish the facts and prompt the Committee of Ministers to act and create a road map for the remedial process. Then Azerbaijan would clearly know what is expected of them and what the consequences are for crossing the red lines,” argues Florian Irminger.

But this is where things get tricky. Again, the mechanism requires action from the Secretary General, and he is currently focusing on behind-the-scenes diplomatic dialogue to resolve the crisis.

Former Secretary General Thorbjørn Jagland has triggered Article 52 several times during his term in office (including in December 2015 in the case of Azerbaijan), although there was no strong monitoring mechanism in place at the time.

Another tool, although very rarely used in the case of the Council of Europe, is the so-called infringement procedure, which is implemented in the event of a member state failing to comply with a decision of the European Court of Human Rights. Under this procedure, the Committee of Ministers can ask the court to issue a final ruling on the matter. If the actions do not produce any concrete results, the state can ultimately be suspended or excluded from the Council of Europe.

Azerbaijan was the first member in history to be subject to such a procedure in 2017-2020 in connection with the judgment in the case of the opposition politician Ilgar Mammadov. However, the case ended amicably and Azerbaijan finally complied with the court’s decisions.

In 2022, the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers voted to initiate a violation procedure in the case of Turkey and the activist Osman Kavala. No results have been achieved so far.

In the case of Azerbaijan, however, the mood in the Committee of Ministers is completely different and there is a lack of political will to activate this instrument, even though there are a number of judgments that Baku has not complied with or has only partially complied with.

Finally, there is a mechanism for inter-state complaints using the European Court of Human Rights, but – as Harry Hummel emphasizes – this would require courage on the part of the complaining state, as this would be perceived as a hostile action.

“The problem is that there is no single leader in the Committee of Ministers who would take the consequences of a harsher course towards the problematic country. The same thing happened in the past with Russia. Everyone was afraid to “politicize” the discussion around Russia’s actions, until finally the last straw. The situation is similar in the case of Azerbaijan,” says the Cure activist.

Florian Irminger echoes him, emphasizing that the greatest weakness of the Council of Europe is the lack of cooperation within the institution and the development of a single action plan.

“The Council of Europe does not have a strategy for solving the Azerbaijan issue. Each department and body within the institution seems to have its own approach to the subject, but no one knows where this train is actually going. There is no locomotive that would connect these detached wagons into one whole. In addition, no one wants to be this locomotive,” says Irminger.

Finishing off critics

Meanwhile, against the backdrop of the Council of Europe’s indecisive policy, Azerbaijan has been ruthlessly dismantling its last pro-western editorial offices and civil society groups. The authorities are striving to fully control the information space, and the repression is intensifying.

According to estimates by the International Press Institute, 25 journalists were detained in Azerbaijan by February 2024. Among them were investigative reporters from Abzas Media, representatives of the editorial offices of Toplum TV and Meydan TV, and workers for the American Congress-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Almost all of them have been charged with smuggling illegal currency and accepting foreign grants – although strict Azerbaijani law in practice prevents the registration of most western funds.

Arrested journalists are often held in difficult conditions and struggle with serious health problems. The Toplum TV editor Shahnaz Baylargizi has diabetes, her colleague Alasgar Mammadli has suspected thyroid cancer, and the Meydan TV journalist Aynur Gambarova (known as Aynur Elgunesh) is disabled. Despite numerous appeals for their release on humanitarian grounds, they remain in prison. The election expert and human rights activist Anar Mammadli has suffered a similar fate, serving his sentence since last spring despite an advanced stomach condition. The economist and professor at the London School of Economics Gubad Ibadoghlu also has health problems and, although he was released to house arrest a few months ago, he is still not allowed to travel abroad for treatment. Moreover, Ibadoghlu’s personal ID was deactivated by the authorities, which makes it difficult to seek medical help in the country. On top of everything, his property assets were illegally confiscated by the government, leaving him with no financial means to pay everyday bills.

The series of arrests has also affected independent researchers and political analysts. In December 2024, Azer Gasimli, the director of the Institute of Political Management and a political scientist, who in his comments and posts warned of Ilham Aliyev’s pro-Russian turn in politics, was detained. He was charged with extortion – a completely fabricated charge, according to human rights activists.

“My husband previously won a court case against a dishonest debtor for the return of a loan. Now the same man claims that Azer allegedly threatened him and demanded money from him. On this basis, he was officially detained. The legal argument does not hold water, there is no evidence. But someone accused him and now it is Azer who has to prove his innocence. This is absurd,” comments Samira Gasimli, a journalist and wife of the detained political scientist.

A few months earlier, an Azeri doctoral student at Charles University in Prague, who was visiting his family in Baku, was also imprisoned. Bahruz Samadov, who had criticized the Azerbaijani authorities over the past few years on its Karabakh policy and empathized with the Armenian side in the conflict, has been charged with treason.

The latest negative trend is the deprivation of the private property of critics of the authorities. In the recently concluded trial of the blogger and pro-democracy activist Bakhtiyar Hajiyev, the court not only sentenced him to ten years in prison but also ordered the irrevocable confiscation of the activist’s apartment and money from his private bank account.

Other journalists and activists in pretrial detention are struggling with the same problem. Their assets have also been frozen, preventing family members from using the apartment or car they left behind. Everything indicates that after a conviction, they will lose their property to the state.

In the case of the political activist Akif Qurbanov, who was arrested less than a month and a half after returning from the 2024 winter session of PACE in Strasbourg and accused of smuggling foreign currency, collective responsibility was applied to his family. The politician reported from behind bars that after his arrest, his father’s car, his children’s computers and phones, and his father’s phones were confiscated.

The number of political prisoners in Azerbaijan is currently the highest in two decades. According to the accounts of the Union for the Freedom of Political Prisoners, there are at least 357 people behind bars on politically motivated charges.

“The current wave of repression is different from the one in 2014, when mass arrests were also taking place. Back then, the targets were mainly NGO leaders, but now a much wider group of people is being targeted. The authorities do not want any independent lawyers, researchers, journalists, opposition politicians or activists in the country. This time, it is about completely destroying civil society and suppressing any critical voices,” explains the lawyer and human rights activist Samad Rahimli.

Rahimli points to two reasons for the new wave of repression: changes in Azerbaijan’s geopolitics and its increasingly open commitment to alliances with anti-democratic countries. However, there is also the issue of domestic politics.

“Socio-economic problems are growing in Azerbaijan, and civil society and the few independent news outlets – to the dismay of the government – have been bringing the uncomfortable problems of ordinary Azerbaijanis to light and destroying the image of the country in the euphoria after the Karabakh victory,” Rahimli adds.

What is next?

Although in theory the Council of Europe procedures do not envision a scenario in which a member state does not have a delegation in the Parliamentary Assembly but continues to work in the other Council institutions, Azerbaijan may set a new precedent for many months or even years.

“Currently, the procedures are based on the good will of states. But the problem arises when this good will is lacking,” says Harry Hummel.

On the one hand, the lack of a delegation in PACE means for Baku a loss of influence on key decisions – Azerbaijan cannot participate in the election of the Secretary General of the Council of Europe or judges of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), and it does not participate in political debates.

On that front, President Aliyev stated that his country would stop implementing the judgments of the European Court on Human Rights given that Azerbaijani delegation – due to its suspended status – missed the last voting on ECHR judges.

“All decisions of the European Courts are now invalid in Azerbaijan because we were deprived of the voting rights. We don’t know who these judges are”, Aliyev declared.

That would add to the long list of Council of Europe’s institutions and procedures ignored by Azerbaijan.

The country’s absence in PACE also means that election monitoring in the country is suspended, and according to an unwritten rule, there are no official reports run on the country – since the delegation does not participate in the work of PACE, there is no one to answer questions.

However, that may change soon. There is talk behind the scenes that since this time it was Azerbaijan itself that decided not to send a delegation and consciously placed itself outside the PACE structures, there is nothing to prevent the resumption of monitoring the situation in the country.

But without strong political will, it will be difficult to change the status quo. As Council of Europe officials unofficially emphasize, the greatest threat is the domino effect – the precedent of one member state leaving could encourage other countries to make a similar decision. This is especially true since tensions are growing in relations with Turkey and Georgia.

The Committee of Ministers holds the view that the Council of Europe cannot afford to lose another member, especially from outside the continent. This would undermine the very purpose of the institution – what good would the group be if it were reduced to the role of the “European Union 2.0”?

For Azerbaijan, this is an almost ideal situation. It can continue to threaten to leave the organization, suspend ECHR judgments, while at the same time reaping the benefits of membership in the Council of Europe. The fact that for many European countries, especially from the south, Azerbaijan is a key supplier of energy resources, is also significant.

An anonymous Council of Europe official has stated that the prevailing mood among the member states is as follows: “You do have political prisoners, you cooperate with Russia on the sidelines, but we need you.”

This Strasbourg realpolitik is met with disappointment by human rights defenders from Azerbaijan, who do not hide the fact that they had expected more from Europe’s oldest human rights institution.

Anna Zamejc is a freelance journalist and an expert on the South Caucasus.

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Aliyev, Azerbaijan, EU-Azerbaijani relations, Nagorno Karabakh, PACE, South Caucasus