By Gevorg Tosunyan
Armenia's government has prioritized preventing another war with Azerbaijan but risks leaving itself without the bargaining power needed to secure the release of Armenian detainees held in Baku, according to U.S. Judge Gassia Apkarian.
Apkarian, a judge of the Superior Court of Orange County, California, and a founding member of the U.S.-based nonprofit Center for Truth and Justice (CFTJ), said she understood Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's focus on protecting Armenia. However, she questioned whether the government's approach offered sufficient leverage to negotiate concessions from Azerbaijan.
CivilNet spoke with Apkarian during the Voices Against Erasure: Victims of Atrocity Crimes in an Age of Impunity conference in Yerevan. The interview addressed the Armenian prisoners held in Azerbaijan, Baku's policies toward Armenia, the prospects for peace and judicial independence.
Security at all costs and the limits of negotiation
Apkarian acknowledged that protecting the Republic of Armenia had become the government's central priority following Azerbaijan's military offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh in September 2023.
She recalled widespread concerns at the time that Azerbaijan might also attack Armenia's southern Syunik region. That did not happen, she noted, and preventing such an outcome was an understandable objective.
"The current Armenian administration's entire focus—which I do not disagree with—is to keep the Republic of Armenia safe, which is a good thing," she said.
However, Apkarian argued that placing security above all other objectives could deprive Armenia of bargaining power in negotiations with Azerbaijan, including over the release of detainees.
"If your sole objective is to keep the country safe at all costs, it means you have no leverage and you are not negotiating to get anything back."
She suggested that Armenia's negotiating position had effectively been reduced to seeking assurances that Azerbaijan would not launch another attack.
"If the only thing you are offering is, essentially, 'just don't attack Armenia,' and that is the only currency you have, then you have nothing to negotiate with."
Apkarian questioned what Armenia could offer Azerbaijan in exchange for the prisoners' release under such circumstances.
The Armenian government maintains that the release of detainees remains on its diplomatic agenda. Former Security Council Secretary Armen Grigoryan said in September that the issue had never been removed from negotiations between Yerevan and Baku.
Apkarian nevertheless expressed deep skepticism about the possibility of achieving progress under current conditions.
"There is virtually no hope for the prisoners in Azerbaijan to be released," she said, while acknowledging that changes in the international political environment could alter the situation.
Prisoner release depends on political deal, Apkarian argues
Apkarian argued that legal proceedings alone were unlikely to secure the release of Armenian prisoners held in Azerbaijan.
She said Baku's decision to prosecute former political and military leaders of Nagorno-Karabakh under Azerbaijani criminal law had made their release particularly difficult.
"Legally, there is no mechanism to secure their release. The only possibility is political," she said.
Her assessment was categorical, although legal proceedings concerning Armenian detainees have been pursued through international institutions, including the European Court of Human Rights.
Apkarian argued that Azerbaijan would need to receive something in return for agreeing to release the detainees.
"So the question becomes what does Armenia have to offer in exchange," she said.
Asked whether diplomatic pressure from the United States or the European Union could help, she dismissed the possibility of meaningful intervention under current circumstances.
"What is the benefit to them?" she asked.
Apkarian argued that Western countries use human rights and democracy as instruments of diplomatic leverage, but that such pressure has limited effectiveness against Azerbaijan.
"Human rights is a currency. The West uses human rights and democracy as leverage to put pressure on a country," she said.
She suggested that Western governments could exert greater influence over Armenia, which she described as a democracy, than over Azerbaijan.
Apkarian, however, said she did not expect either Washington or Brussels to exert sufficient political pressure to achieve the prisoners' release.
"My conclusion is bleak: we have no mechanisms to secure the release of these prisoners unless the Armenian and Azerbaijani governments strike a deal that includes their release."
Still, she acknowledged that the international environment could change.
"I do not know if that will still be true in two years, because in two years, the political landscape in the United States and Russia will shift," she said.
Trials of Karabakh leaders and Azerbaijan's broader policies
Apkarian also argued that Azerbaijan's prosecution of former Nagorno-Karabakh leaders had consequences extending beyond the individuals held in custody.
Azerbaijan regained control of Nagorno-Karabakh following its September 2023 military offensive, which resulted in the ethnic cleansing of the region’s Armenian population and forced more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians to flee to Armenia. The region had been governed by ethnic Armenian authorities for roughly three decades but was internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan.
Former political and military leaders of Artsakh have faced criminal proceedings in Baku, which Armenian officials and human rights advocates have criticized.
Apkarian argued that prosecuting these individuals under Azerbaijani law was intended not only to punish them but also to undermine the legitimacy of Nagorno-Karabakh's Armenian political and historical identity.
"Even if we put aside the human factor—the fact that these Armenians are suffering in prison—what they are doing is destroying our history by prosecuting them as criminals in the Azerbaijani system."
She said the Center for Truth and Justice also had information and evidence indicating that Azerbaijan held additional Armenian prisoners whose detention Baku had not acknowledged. She did not provide details of that evidence during the interview.
Apkarian linked the prosecutions to Azerbaijan's broader policies toward Armenia, particularly its promotion of the Western Azerbaijan narrative, which presents territories in present-day Armenia as the ancestral homeland of Azerbaijanis.
She argued that this narrative, combined with Azerbaijan's military actions and its treatment of Nagorno-Karabakh's former leadership, raised concerns about Baku's long-term intentions.
"Azerbaijan currently occupies parts of Armenia and claims that Armenia is Azerbaijan," she said.
She described the current absence of major hostilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan as potentially temporary, citing developments involving Iran, Russia, Ukraine and the United States as factors shaping regional politics.
"We are living through a temporary period of peace, but Azerbaijan is not interested in peace, and war is around the corner. That is how I see it."
Her assessment contrasts with the Armenian government's emphasis on the progress achieved through negotiations with Azerbaijan.
Yerevan and Baku initialed the text of a peace agreement at a U.S.-brokered summit in Washington on August 8, 2025, but have not signed the treaty.
Judicial independence in Armenia and the United States
Turning to judicial independence, Apkarian declined to assess the Armenian judicial system, saying she lacked sufficient knowledge of its internal workings.
"It would be disingenuous for me to offer an opinion on that," she said.
Instead, she described the American judicial system, distinguishing between federal courts and state courts, where she serves.
Apkarian said federal judges can face political pressure because their appointment involves the executive branch, while judges serving in state courts in California enjoy considerable independence. She said she had not personally experienced political pressure in her judicial work.
She also pointed to criticism of judges by U.S. President Donald Trump, noting that political leaders publicly challenging judicial decisions was not unusual.
For Apkarian, the more important question was whether judges allowed political criticism to influence their rulings.
"The real question you need to ask is: is the judicial branch bending to the executive branch?"
She argued that judges should be guided by the law and decisions of higher courts rather than by reactions from politicians or the public.
"If you are making a ruling that makes everyone happy, you are not doing your job," she said.
Asked about political pressure on judges in Armenia, including criminal proceedings involving a judge who had ordered the release of former President Robert Kocharyan from detention in 2019, Apkarian criticized the situation described to her.
"Of course, that is awful—that is neither right nor good," she said.
However, she emphasized that the existence of pressure did not necessarily establish that judges had compromised their independence.
"Of course, the judiciary faces pressure—100 percent. The question is whether or not judges bend to it. And that is a question I cannot answer."
Apkarian also suggested that Armenia's relatively small population and close personal networks could create challenges for judicial independence, including the possibility of introducing jury trials.
She noted that Orange County, where she serves, has roughly the same population as Armenia, but said she was not in a position to determine how these factors affect the Armenian judiciary.
She stressed that political criticism of courts does not necessarily demonstrate political control. A prime minister criticizing judges could even indicate that the judiciary was acting independently and making decisions the government disliked, she said.
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