Human rights activists have called on the Council of Europe to respond to the human rights crisis in Azerbaijan.

Ahead of the winter session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the "End Repression in Azerbaijan" human rights campaign called on Council of Europe bodies to launch a "Joint Response Procedure" against Baku, arguing that Azerbaijan is failing to comply with its human rights obligations to the organization.

As reported by "Caucasian Knot," in January 2024, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) adopted a resolution by a majority vote limiting the powers of the Azerbaijani delegation in response to human rights violations in the country and the growing number of political prisoners. The resolution also mentions human rights violations in the Lachin corridor and states that PACE "condemned the military operation of the Azerbaijani army in September 2023," which led to the exodus of the Armenian population from Nagorno-Karabakh. The Azerbaijani delegation left the PACE meeting, accusing the structure of double standards, and in August dozens of its members weredeclared persona non grata in Azerbaijan. On September 6, 2024, the country's president, Ilham Aliyev, announced that the ban on PACE members visiting Azerbaijan would be lifted when the credentials of the Azerbaijani delegation in this organization were restored. In 2025, Azerbaijan did not send a delegation to PACE, but at the end of September, a delegation from the Council of Europe Committee against Torture, which had been denied access to Azerbaijan a year and a half earlier, visited the country .

Ahead of the PACE winter session, which opens on January 26 in Strasbourg, the "End Repression in Azerbaijan" human rights campaign, launched by Azerbaijani and foreign activists in mid-2024 to draw international attention to politically motivated persecution ahead of the COP29 climate conference in Baku, appealed to members of the Assembly.

The campaign participants recalled that following the PACE decision in January 2024 not to ratify the mandate of the Azerbaijani delegation due to the deteriorating human rights situation, persistent non-compliance with commitments, and lack of cooperation, the Azerbaijani parliament refused to submit the credentials of its representatives for approval in January 2025, which amounted to "a clear refusal of the Assembly to monitor the situation in the country."

"For many years, Azerbaijan has cooperated (with the Council of Europe) selectively and on its own terms, refusing to engage on key issues such as political prisoners and the systematic abuse of criminal law. Meanwhile, the Council of Europe's response has too often been conciliatory – formal 'cooperation' programs have continued without changing the situation on the ground," lawyer Samed Rahimli, a member of the campaign's steering committee, told a "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

Over the past two years, the number of political prisoners in Azerbaijan has doubled, reaching 400 by the end of 2025, according to human rights activists' appeal to PACE. "New waves of arrests of journalists, civil society representatives, civil activists, trade unionists, and academics are aimed at suppressing not only dissent, but any dissenting opinion." "The lists of recent raids, arbitrary detentions, travel bans, and transnational pressure on critics are endless," the campaign members emphasize.

If a member state can ignore the Convention's core obligations for years, the damage extends beyond the borders of a single country.

The letter also points out that Azerbaijan is not fully implementing ECHR judgments. "The European Court of Human Rights has repeatedly highlighted the problem and warned the political bodies of the Council of Europe. The Convention system depends on the implementation of judicial decisions: full implementation requires both individual measures and credible general measures to prevent recurrence. General measures should include, among other things, reforms that ensure the independence of the judiciary and stop the abuse of criminal law. However, the Council of Europe's Committee of Ministers' prolonged oversight of the "Anar Mammadli Group," accompanied by repeated decisions and interim rulings without results, should prompt the Council of Europe Secretary General to take further effective action to ensure Azerbaijan's compliance with the European Convention on Human Rights," said lawyer Rahimli. According to the campaigners, "if a member state can ignore the Convention's core obligations for many years, the damage extends beyond the borders of a single country." "This demonstrates that court decisions can be viewed as optional rather than binding. This undermines legal certainty, weakens the protection of victims, and encourages further abuses by other bad actors." "In this sense, the current situation in Azerbaijan poses a challenge to the credibility of the Council of Europe, and the Secretary General's inaction poses a risk to the institution itself," the authors of the message believe.

Given the lack of leadership in the Council of Europe in addressing the human rights crisis in Azerbaijan, responsibility, according to human rights activists, "falls on the Parliamentary Assembly." Members of the "End Repression in Azerbaijan" campaign believe that PACE can play a decisive role in creating a coordinated institutional response commensurate with the systemic crisis.

In this regard, human rights activists call on PACE to launch a "Joint Response Procedure" against Azerbaijan. It should identify urgent measures, jointly with the CoE Committee of Ministers, to ensure that Azerbaijan fulfills its obligations and implements structural reforms in the country.

"The fact that Azerbaijan, as a Council of Europe member state, decides to no longer participate in PACE, thereby hindering its ability to monitor the situation in the country, should be met with the creation of a special rapporteur position in the Assembly with a mandate to frequently report publicly on Baku's compliance with its commitments to the Council of Europe. "For inaction on this issue would effectively mean that a Council of Europe member state would allow itself to silence the Assembly," the human rights activists said in their appeal to PACE.

They also proposed applying consistent political pressure on Azerbaijan through coordinated statements and political activism demanding concrete results, including the release of political prisoners and an end to arbitrary prosecutions, including the persecution of human rights activist Anar Mammadli, whom the Assembly awarded the Václav Havel Prize.

"The Council of Europe was created to protect individual liberties, political freedoms, and the rule of law. A decade of neglect by Azerbaijan and the organization's inaction have put this promise at risk." "We believe that the Parliamentary Assembly can help ensure coherence and integrity in addressing the human rights crisis in Azerbaijan by launching a Joint Response Procedure against Azerbaijan," the statement concluded.

The Council of Europe apparatus tends to pander to authoritarian governments

The initiative to launch a Joint Response Procedure in PACE is appropriate, but the likelihood of its practical implementation is low, a Baku-based analyst told a Caucasian Knot correspondent.

"Azerbaijan is indeed completely ignoring its obligations within the Council of Europe, but in the current situation, the organization has no practical leverage to influence Baku, although legal mechanisms exist. Unfortunately, unlike PACE, where politicians committed to democratic values ​​still exist, the political interests of individual governments prevail in the organization's executive structure (the Committee of Ministers). "At the same time, the Council of Europe apparatus has long since become a bureaucratic structure, where the organization's preservation is paramount for its officials. Therefore, they often adopt a conformist stance in order to retain the organization's members by implementing formal cooperation programs with them. "Sometimes, to please governments, Council of Europe structures abandon projects to support civil society and free media and instead work with right-wing NGOs and state organizations on relevant topics," said an expert, who wished to remain anonymous.

He also recalled that "Russia was expelled from the Council of Europe, and now Azerbaijan and Georgia are refusing to work in PACE." "If pressure is exerted on these countries further, they will leave the Council of Europe altogether. In that case, the organization and its budget will be further reduced, and eventually the organization may become completely unnecessary." Therefore, the apparatus bureaucracy in the Council of Europe is not interested in increasing pressure on governments and will do everything possible to resist the adoption of the "Joint Response Procedure," which could lead to a country's expulsion or its independent withdrawal from the organization. Even within PACE itself, things are not so clear-cut; authoritarian regimes have their lobbyists. Azerbaijan, which already supplies gas to 15 Council of Europe member states, can confidently count on their support both in the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe and among some of their members in PACE," the analyst continued.

At the same time, he emphasized that the initiative of human rights activists who appealed to PACE should be welcomed. "It will, at the very least, help draw international attention to the human rights situation in Azerbaijan and will remind European politicians that they need to talk to Baku not only about oil and gas, but also about European values," the expert concluded.