Armenia and Armenians in International Treaties (International Conference March 18-21, 2009)

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

ARMENIA AND ARMENIANS IN INTERNATIONAL TREATIES

MARCH 18-21, 2009

Organized by the

Armenian Studies Program

Cosponsored by the

Eisenberg Institute for Historical Studies Center for European Studies/European Union Center Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies

Center for Russian and East European Studies Department of Near Eastern Studies

Ford School of Public Policy School of Law

of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

Armenian Research Center

of the University of Michigan-Dearborn

and the

American Research Institute of the South Caucasus

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN ANN ARBOR

This conference has been made possible by a generous gift from the

Manoogian Simone Foundation

with additional support from our cosponsors

ORGANIZING AND COSPONSORING UNITS

ORGANIZER

THE ARMENIAN STUDIES PROGRAM

The origins of the Armenian Studies Program (ASP) at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, lie in the Armenian language and later history classes taught beginning in 1976 by a number of known scholars and teachers, the impetus coming from Professors Aram Yengoyan and Benjamin Stolz. In 1981, Mr. and Mrs. Alex and Marie Manoogian endowed the Alex Manoogian Chair in Modern Armenian History and Dr. Ronald Suny became its first holder. In 1987, the Manoogians endowed a second position, the Marie Manoogian Chair in Armenian Language and Literature and Dr. Kevork Bardakjian became its first holder. In 1988, Professor Bardakjian founded the Summer Armenian Language Institute in Yerevan. In 1994, Professor Suny resigned from his position and Dr. Stephanie Platz was appointed to the Chair (1997-2000). Professor Gerard Libaridian was appointed to the Chair in 2001.

In 1997, Professor Bardakjian moved the Marie Manoogian Chair from the Slavic to the Department of Near Eastern Studies, which became the home Department for the ASP. Professor Bardakjian served as Director from of the ASP from 1995 to 2007; Prof. Libaridian was appointed to that position in 2007. A Steering Committee, made up of faculty from the University of Michigan, helps the Director run the ASP. An Advisory Council, appointed by the University of Michigan and the Alex and Marie Manoogian Fund, supports the activities of the ASP.

The Armenian Studies Program is the umbrella structure for the two Chairs and coordinates their activities, organizes lectures, symposia and conferences and outreach programs for the community. The Program offers a wide range of courses on all periods of Armenian language, literature, history and culture. A major gift from the Manoogian Simone Foundation has made it possible for the Program to include graduate student and post-doctoral fellowships, visiting scholars who are invited to teach in areas not covered by the chair-holders, a graduate workshop, and an outreach program, making the ASP one of the most dynamic and intense programs in the field.

The ASP offers graduate degrees and undergraduate concentration (both minor and major) in Armenian Studies. It is a unit of the International Institute of the University of Michigan.

COSPONSORS

(In alphabetical order)

 THE AMERICAN RESEARCH INSTITUTE OF THE SOUTH CAUCASUS

The American Research Institute of the South Caucasus (ARISC), incorporated in 2006 and headquartered at the University of Chicago, encourages and supports the scholarly study of the South Caucasus. ARISC’s mission is to promote and encourage American research in the region and to foster intellectual inquiry across boundaries as well as between the South Caucasus states and its neighbors. ARISC is currently working to establish offices in Baku, Tbilisi and Yerevan to facilitate research and nurture scholarly ties between institutions and individual scholars. The Armenian Studies Program at the University of Michigan is a founding member of ARISC.

THE ARMENIAN RESEARCH CENTER, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN-DEARBORN

The Armenian Research Center at the University of Michigan-Dearborn was founded in 1985 by Dr. Dennis R. Papazian, who also became its first director. It specializes in the documentation of and publications in the history and civilization of the Armenians. Thanks to generous donations from Mr. and Mrs. Edward and Helen Mardigian and the Knights of Vartan, the Center’s operations are ensured in perpetuity through a million-dollar-plus endowment. The Center first opened in 1986, in the UM-Dearborn campus library, which was renamed the Edward and Helen Mardigian Library in honor of the donors. It moved to its current 3,000- square-foot location in the university’s Academic Support Center in 2005. In 2006, Dr. Papazian retired, and Dr. Ara Sanjian became the Center’s new director.

The Center funds the teaching of the Armenian language on the Dearborn campus. It sponsors scholars to come to Dearborn and use its library in their research, as well as to lecture to the southeast Michigan community. It also answers inquiries from students, scholars, and media representatives from around the world.

The Center maintains a reference library of over 15,000 books, plus journals, newspapers, and about 400 audiovisual media items. The back issues of the subscription newspapers it receives are regularly microfilmed. In addition, the Center has microfilms of older newspapers, plus microfilms and microfiche of official U.S., British, German, and Austro-Hungarian records and American missionary documents pertaining to Armenians or the late Ottoman period. The Center’s library holdings are being made accessible online through the Mardigian Library’s own online catalog, as well as OCLC online search.

The Center has published five books and six issues of the Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies. It will soon launch an Armenian Studies publication series in collaboration with professors in the Armenian Studies Program at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

THE CENTER FOR EUROPEAN STUDIES/EUROPEAN UNION CENTER

A constituent of the University of Michigan International Institute since 1996, the Center for European Studies (CES) is the focal point for the interdisciplinary study of Europe at U-M. In 2001, CES received a grant from the European Commission to establish a European Union Center (EUC) and since 2005 the U-M’s EUC has been designated one of eleven European Union Centers of Excellence in the United States.

The Centers comprise a multidisciplinary research, education, and outreach program that promotes the understanding of an integrated Europe at the University and in the community. In collaboration with academic and research units across the University, EU centers at other universities in the U.S., and institutions of higher education in Europe, the centers offer an array of public programs, funding opportunities, and innovative curricular outreach on Europe, and sponsor the visits of European scholars, artists, and professionals to U-M and southeastern Michigan.

THE CENTER FOR MIDDLE EASTERN AND NORTH AFRICAN STUDIES

The Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies (CMENAS) is a constituent unit of the University of Michigan International Institute (II). It brings together faculty in the Department with other area specialists in a number of disciplines within the College of Literature, Science and the Arts (e.g. Anthropology, Archaeology, History, Linguistic and Sociology) as well as the Schools of Law, Business Administration, and Public Health.

The M.A. program at CMENAS is designed as a general interdisciplinary introduction to the area and to one or more of its languages. It is intended to provide broad area and language training at the graduate level for students with either academic or professional interests and is most appropriate for students who are committed to the area and interested in an interdisciplinary approach at the M.S. level. The Center is supported by the U.S. Department of Education: it organizes and sponsors numerous activities (language circles, lectures and colloquia by visiting scholars), and administers fellowships such as the Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS).

THE CENTER FOR RUSSIAN AND EAST EUROPEAN STUDIES

The Center for Russian and East European Studies (CREES), a constituent unit of the University of Michigan International Institute, is one of the nation’s leading institutes for interdisciplinary research and training in Russian and East European studies. First designated as a Slavic Language and Area Center in 1959, CREES is now one of twenty U.S. Department of Education-supported National Resource Centers for Eastern Europe, Russia, and Central Asia. With an outstanding faculty of over sixty area specialists and visiting scholars in the humanities, social sciences, and professions, CREES is renowned for its regional programs in Central European (particularly Polish and Czech) studies, Russian studies, and Southeast European studies.

Over two hundred students are currently enrolled in interdisciplinary REES B.A. and M.A. degree programs, REES minors and graduate certificate programs, graduate-level joint degree programs with professional schools, and school and departmental graduate-level programs with a REES focus. CREES organizes over forty public programs each year (e.g., lectures, conferences, and film screenings) and provides instructional and informational services to Midwestern schools and colleges, media, and businesses.

THE DEPARTMENT OF NEAR EASTERN STUDIES

The Department of Near Eastern Studies is part of the College of Literature, Science and the Arts, which administers its undergraduate programs leading to the B.A. degrees, and of the Rackham School of Graduate Studies, which administers its graduate programs leading to the M.A. and Ph.D. degrees. The regular faculty numbers about 26, of which 12 are full professors. The Department offers several programs of study at the B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. levels, covering Near Eastern languages, literatures, civilizations, linguistics, history, Ancient studies, Biblical studies, Egyptology, Medieval Islamic history and Islamic studies.

THE EISENBERG INSTITUTE FOR HISTORICAL STUDIES

The Eisenberg Institute for Historical Studies was founded in 2004 as an intellectual center where UM faculty, graduate students and outside visitors examine and discuss current analytical and methodological issues in the field of history. The Thursday Series of colloquia, seminars, and lectures constitutes the core of the Institute’s scholarly program. Distinguished guests are invited to present at the Series, often around a defined theme that focuses the work of a given year. In addition to the Series, the Institute sponsors graduate student workshops, a film series, and other events that foster critical thinking of issues related to historical teaching and research. The Institute also welcomes a number of fellows and resident scholars each year to participate in its program.

The Eisenberg Institute for Historical Studies aims to stimulate imaginative new scholarship and innovative teaching. It hopes to contribute to the study of history nationally as well as transmit new modes of historical understanding to successive generations of students. In so doing, the Institute seeks to enrich the department and university community generally and to help bridge the divide that tends to open between graduate student and faculty academic life.

THE FORD SCHOOL OF PUBLIC POLICY

Our mission, as a school, is to offer outstanding education for leadership in public policy analysis and public management and to excel in social science research that illuminates public policy issues and promotes better public policy. We know that education, research, and public service depend on one another. Teaching and public service draw us into the policy world, posing challenges that sharpen and strengthen our research agenda. In turn, the research carried out by our faculty–covering an extensive array of policy topics – enriches the education we provide and guides our direct contributions to public service.

At the Ford School, we offer rigorous education to policy analysts and public managers, confident that those who are well trained in the analysis of economic, political, and organizational issues will be best able to address public concerns. Our interdisciplinary faculty – leaders in their fields – is committed to the effective use of the social sciences to understand public problems and contribute to their solution.

THE MICHIGAN SCHOOL OF LAW

For 150 years, the University of Michigan’s Law School has offered its students one of the world’s finest legal educations in a setting of stunning physical beauty. Among Michigan Law’s 20,000+ alumni can be found leaders in law, business, and public service in countries across the globe. While students certainly gain access to a collegial community of scholars who work at the top of their fields, they also come into contact with each other – with a diverse body of talented students whose cooperative spirit helps bring out the best in faculty and student alike.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES OF PARTICIPANTS

(In alphabetical order) 

Aslanian, Sebouh

Dr. Sebouh Aslanian is currently Manoogian Simone Foundation Post-doctoral Fellow, Armenian Studies Program, University of Michigan. His 2007 Ph.D. dissertation, From the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean: Circulation and the Global Trade Networks of Armenian Merchants, from New Julfa/Isfahan, 1605-1747 (Columbia University), received a Best Dissertation Award for that year from the Graduate School at Columbia. He is also the author of the monograph Dispersian History and the Polycentric Nation: The role of Simeon Yervantsi’s Girk or koči partavčar in the 18th Century Revival (in the series Bibliotheque d’Armenologie “Bazmavep”). He is the author of a number of articles on the New Julfa merchants in various academic journals as well.
elixe@aol.com

Avdoyan, Levon

Levon Avdoyan received his PhD from Columbia University. He has published a critical translation and commentary of the 10th century Armenian monastic work, The History of Taron, as well as numerous articles and monographs on Armenian history and historiography. He joined the staff of the Library of Congress where he first served as its specialist for Classics and Ancient and Byzantine Studies before becoming the Armenian and Georgian Area Specialist in the Near East Section of the African and Middle Eastern Division. He publishes and lectures widely on Armenian Studies, especially on the impact of the digital era on that discipline.
lavd@loc.gov

Bardakjian, Kevork

Kevork B. Bardakjian received his D.Phil. in Armenian studies from Oxford University. He then taught and supervised the Armenian collection at Harvard University (1974-1987) and became the first holder of the Marie Manoogian Chair  of Armenian Language and Literature at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. In 1988 he founded the University of Michigan Summer Armenian Institute, held annually in Armenia. From 1995 to 2007, Professor Bardakjian was Director of the Armenian Studies Program. He has been President of the Society of Armenian Studies for two consecutive terms (1982-1984) and has served on the editorial boards of a number of Armenian studies journals.

Professor Bardakjian has published and lectured extensively throughout the United States, Europe, and Armenia.
kbar@umich.edu

Bozoyan, Azat

Dr. Azat Artash Bozoyan studied in the faculty of history at Yerevan  State University. His first book, The Eastern Politics of Byzantine and Cilician Armenia in 30-70s of the 12th Century, was published in 1988. In 1995 he published Documents on  the  Armenian –  Byzantine   Ecclesiastical   Negotiations / 1165-1178/. Since   1982 he has been working at the Academy of Sciences of Armenia and in 1999 he was appointed head of the section “Christian East” at the Institute of Oriental Studies. Since 2001 he has been the Director of the Armenological and Theological Center “Garegin I” in Holy Etchmiadzin. He has taught at Yerevan State University (1995-1997) and the Khatchatur Abovian Pedagogical Institute. He is currently professor at the Gevorkian Theological Seminary in Holy Etchmiadzin.

Dr. Bozoyan has published over 150 articles in scientific journals and edited volumes in Armenia and abroad and participated in programs at  the  Institute  of the History of Rights in Frankfurt /Mein, and the Universities of  Bologna,  Wurzburg, Graz, Montpelier and College de France in Paris.
bznazt@yahoo.fr

Dadoyan, Seta

Seta B. Dadoyan is Doctor of Sciences in Philosophy. She was professor of cultural studies, philosophy, art, history of technology and professional ethics at the American University of Beirut 1986-2005. Previously she also taught at Haigazian University and the Lebanese-American University. She was the Ordjanian Visiting Professor of Armenian Studies at MEALAC, Columbia University, during the spring terms of 2002 and 2006. Currently she teaches at St. Nersess Armenian Seminary at New Rochelle, NY.

The focus of her research and publications is the study of Armenian social- political and intellectual cultures in their interactive aspects within the Near Eastern world, both medieval and modern. In addition to many lectures in various universities and institutions, she is the author of almost 50 extensive papers in scholarly journals in Armenian and English. She is the author of five books including Armenian Painting in Lebanon (Beirut,1984), Pages of West-Armenian Philosophy (Beirut,1987), John of Erzinjan (Yovhannes Erznkatsi) – Sources of his ‘Views from the Writings of Islamic Philosophers’: Rasa’il Ihhwan al-Safa (Beirut, 1991), and The Fatimid Armenians: Cultural and Political Interactions in the Near East (Brill, 1997). She is currently completing her magnum opus, The Armenians and Islam: Paradigms of Medieval Interactions.
sdadoyan@yahoo.com

Dundar, Fuat

Dr. Fuat Dundar is a Manoogian Simone Foundation Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of Michigan and teaching a course on “Power, Peoples, Statistics: Nationalisms in the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey.” His dissertation, completed at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes des Sciences Sociales in Paris and published recently in Turkey, was titled Turkey’s Cipher : The Ethnic Engineering of the CUP. He has also authored CUP’s Settlement Policy of the Muslims (Istanbul, 2001) and Minorities in the Turkish Census, (Istanbul, 2000) which was also published in Greek in 2003.
fuatdundar@hotmail.com

Garibian, Sévane

Dr. Sévane Garibian (University of Paris X – Nanterre and University of Geneva) is specialized in International Criminal Law and Legal Theory. Her PhD Thesis (2007) is titled: Crime against humanity and the founding principles of the modern state: birth and consecration of a concept. She is currently Swiss National Science Foundation Post-Doctoral Fellow, and works on the influence of International Law in the actual Argentinian trials of the crimes committed during the military dictatorship.

Her recently published articles include: “Taking Denial Seriously: Genocide Denial and Freedom of Speech in the French Law”, The Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution, vol. 9, n° 2, 2008, 479-488; “A Commentary on David Scheffer’s Concepts of Genocide and Atrocity Crimes”, Genocide Studies and Prevention, vol. 2, n° 1, 2007, 43-50; “Crimes against humanity and international legality in legal theory after Nuremberg”, Journal of Genocide Research, vol. 9, n° 1, 2007, 93-111.
sevane.garibian@gmail.com

Hewsen, Robert H.

Dr. Robert H. Hewsen was born in New York City and received his PhD from Georgetown University where he majored in Russian and Caucasian history. Dr. Hewsen taught Russian and Byzantine History at Rowan University (formerly Glassboro State College) for 32 years. He also served as a Visiting Professor teaching Armenian history at numerous other institutions including the Universities of Michigan, Chicago, Pennsylvania, Tubingen (Germany), the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Columbia, etc. In addition to numerous articles, he has published an English translation of the 7th century Armenian “Geography” (Weisbaden, 1992) and is the compiler of Armenia: A Historical Atlas (University of Chicago, 2001).
rhewsen@comcast.net

Hovannisian, Richard

Richard Hovannisian is holder of the Armenian Educational Foundation Chair in Modern Armenian History at the University of California, Los Angeles. His numerous publications include Armenia on the Road to Independence, the four-volume The Republic of Armenia, five volumes on the Armenian Genocide, the latest being titled The Armenian Genocide: Cultural and Ethical Legacies, eight volumes in the series Historic Armenian Cities and Provinces, and seventeen other volumes and sixty research articles relating to Armenian, Caucasian, Middle Eastern, and Islamic studies.

A Guggenheim Fellow, he has received many honors, including encyclicals from the supreme patriarchs of the Armenian Church, two honorary doctoral degrees, and election to membership in the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia. He is the initiator and seven-time president of the Society for Armenian Studies.
hovannis@history.ucla.edu

Kavani, Ali

Rajabali Kavani is Doctor of History (Early Modern times, Iran and Europe). He is a member of the TANAP research Group at Leiden University, the Netherlands since 2003, focusing on Perso-Dutch trade relations during the early modern period. He has transcribed the Memorie van Overgave (1702) [Memorandum of Transfer] by the Persia Director of the VOC (Ducth East India Company) Jacob Hooghkamer, transcribed the latter’s Rapport [Report] on the silk trade (1702), and otherwise worked extensively on the VOC archives.

Dr. Kavani is Co-author/translator of A Practical Dutch Grammar (2006). He is also Research Fellow at the Institute for Issuance of the History of Iran, Tehran since 2000, evaluating Old Persian, Arabic and Turkish manuscripts and documents. He is now visiting Professor at Tehran University and teaching history of Afsharid and Zand dynasties with focus on Armenians in Iran during that period. The general focus of his research is Armenians and trade in Iran, Russia, Turkey and the Netherlands, regarding which he has published a number of translations and articles in scientific journals.
alikavani@gmail.com

Kessedjian, Catherine

Catherine Kessedjian is Director of a Masters program in European Law, Deputy Director of the European College of Paris and Professor of European Business Law, Private International Law, International Dispute Resolution and International Commercial Arbitration at the University of Panthéon-Assas, Paris II, France.

She is regularly invited to teach in different countries, either at regular programs or as a visiting professor. In 2004, she was appointed a Hauser Global Professor at New York University School of Law where she teaches International Commercial Transactions and a seminar on Rule Making Processes in a Global World.

Dr. Kessedjian currently acts as mediator or arbitrator in a selected number of transnational disputes either ad hoc or under the auspices of, among others, ICSID, the ICC, LCIA and the AAA. Before joining Paris II, she was Deputy Secretary General of the Hague Conference on Private International Law (1996-2000), taught International Business Transactions, European Business Law, and was Director of the European Law Center of the Université de Bourgogne.

She received her legal education from the University of Paris (Doctorate) and the University of Pennsylvania Law School (LLM).
Catherine.Kessedjian@u-paris2.fr

Kouyoumdjian, Armen

Armen Kouyoumdjian graduated in 1970 from the Sorbonne, Paris, where he studied Applied Statistics. Since then he has worked with a number of international business and consultancy companies in research and risk analysis in Europe and Central and South America. Mr. Kouyoumdjian has taught, published and lectured extensively in his area of specialization worldwide.

Since 1991 Mr. Kouyoumdjian has settled in Chile, where he has served as vice-chairman of Chile’s Armenian Community and President for Chile of the All- Armenia Fund. He is now the liaison in Chile for cultural and international matters and regional organizations in Latin America on behalf of the Embassy of Armenia in Argentina. He contributes regularly on Armenian affairs to Spanish/language publications, audiovisual media and websites.
kouyvina@cmet.net

Mutafian, Claude

Claude Mutafian is a former Professor of Mathematics at Paris-13 University. His research covers Armenian history, which he presented in his Historical Atlas of Armenia (2001). He specializes in the medieval period, particularly the Cilician Kingdom of Armenia and its relations with the Crusaders and the Mongols. He has numerous publications in that field, and his PhD thesis was on “Armenian Diplomacy in the Levant during the Crusades.” He is currently preparing an in-depth study titled « Armenia of the Levant », which covers the XIIth-XIVth centuries.

Dr. Mutafian has also organized various exhibitions, such as “The Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia” (Paris, 1993), “Roma-Armenia “(Vatican, 1999), and “Armenia, the Magic of Writing” (Marseilles, 2007).
Claude.mutafian@wanadoo.fr

Ohanian, Pascual

Dr. Pascual Ohanian is a lawyer and historian based in Argentina. He is the author of many books specializing in the study of primary sources on the Armenian Question and the Armenian Genocide, including six of the thousand-page volumes of The Armenian Question and International Relations. He has conducted  first-ever  research on the Armenian Genocide, among others, in the State Department archives of Spain and the Vatican, in part as a court-appointed researcher-expert in Hairabedian vs. Turkey, an unprecedented case in Argentinean Criminal Court dealing with the yet unsettled principle of the Right to the Truth.

During the past four decades he has taught courses in Argentinean universities on human rights, impunity, genocide cover-up, and denialism in international law, and has read lectures on discrimination, international terrorism and crimes against humanity. His current research is focused on the penalization of denialism and the applicability of the Argentinean International Treaties to the Armenian demands from Turkey.

He is the recipient of an honorary doctorate from the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia, and is an honorary member of the Buenos Aires Bar Association.
ohanianp@yahoo.com.ar

Papazian, Dennis

Dennis R. Papazian, PhD, is Professor Emeritus of history and Founding Director of the Armenian Research Center at the University of Michigan, Dearborn. His primary fields of interest were Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union and its constituent republics, as well as the Caucasus. More recently he became involved in the study of the Armenian Genocide and the circumstances surrounding it, which led him to a more detailed study of historic Armenia, the Ottoman Empire, and present-day Turkey.

He was the founding director of the Armenian Assembly of America in Washington, DC, and served many years as the chairman of its Board of Directors. He has been involved in academic administration, served as the president of the Society for Armenian Studies and as editor of the Journal of the Society  for Armenian Studies, and has been noted as a frequent commentator on Soviet and international affairs on local TV and newspapers. He has written numerous articles and studies on various facets of his fields of studies, and he has been active in various relevant academic organizations including the International Association of Genocide Scholars.
Papazian@umich.edu

Preiser-Kapeller, Johannes

Johannes Preiser-Kapeller, Mag. Dr. Phil., is Junior Scientist at the Institute for Byzantine Studies of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. He received his doctorate in Byzantine Studies from the University of Vienna. He is contributing to the new edition of the Register of the Patriarchate of Constantinople (14th cent.), a central source for the history and church history of late Byzantium. He is also working on a systematic synopsis of the Byzantine Empire´s foreign relations, especially with Persia, the Caucasus region and Armenia, for the 6th to the 9th centuries, within the program for the “Regesten der Kaiserurkunden des oströmischen Reiches” of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences (Munich).
Johannes.Preiser-Kapeller@oeaw.ac.at

Sanamyan, Emil

Mr. Sanamyan has a BA in Political Science from the University of Arizona (1998) and did graduate work in international security studies at the George Washington University. In addition to Armenian media, he has written for the Jane’s Information Group and frequently appears on Voice of America TV. His public presentations include the Department of Defense, Johns Hopkins University and the Parliament of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic. Mr. Sanamyan is a Washington Editor of the Armenian Reporter www.reporter.am and regularly writes on international affairs subject for various other publications.
sanamyan@gmail.com

Shougarian, Rouben

Ambassador Ruben Shougarian has done graduate studies in philosophy and theory of culture at Yerevan State University. He was independent Armenia’s first Ambassador to the US and subsequently served as Ambassador to Italy, Spain and Portugal and as Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs. He has lectured extensively and is the author of numerous articles and a forthcoming book, West of Eden, East of the Chessboard.

Ambassador Shougarian is currently Lecturer at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University.
R_shugarian@yahoo.com

Taslakyan, Lusine

Ms. Lusine Taslakyan has extensive experience in international development projects in Armenia and the South Caucasus. She received her Diploma in Biology and Ecology from the Armenian State Pedagogical University in 1997 and completed a post-graduate course at the Institute of Hydroecology and Ichthyology of the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia. In 2001 Ms. Taslakyan was awarded an Edmund S. Muskie Graduate Fellowship and received her M.S. in Environmental Science from the University of Idaho, USA in 2003.

Her area of specialization includes water resources management, promotion of public awareness and public participation in environmental decision-making process. Ms. Taslakyan worked at various international organizations implementing environmental and water management projects in Armenia and the Caucasus, organized and facilitated public awareness seminars and workshops for local stakeholders and NGOs. During the last five years she worked as  Public Participation Task Leader at the USAID Program for Institutional and Regulatory Strengthening of Water Management in Armenia. Ms. Taslakyan also serves as a consultant to the Trans Boundary River Management of the Kura River project  funded by the European Commission.
lucine_t@excite.com

Vardanyan, Vladimir

Vladimir D. Vardanyan studied law and received his doctorate in International Law from Yerevan State University. He defended his doctoral thesis, titled “Basis of State Responsibility for Genocide,” at Yerevan State University where subsequently he became a lecturer in the Department of Constitutional and International Law. Since 2006 Dr. D. Vardanyan holds the position of Head of International Treaties Department of the Staff of the Constitutional Court of Armenia.

Vladimir D. Vardanyan is author of more than 20 scientific papers dedicated to several aspects of International and Constitutional Law. Including “Resolution 106: the Juridical Essence and Political and Legal Contents” in G. Novikova ed., “Regional Security Issues: 2007. Collection of Articles” (Yerevan 2007), “Strengthening of the Democratic Structures and Rule of Law” in G. Novikova and S. Sargsyan eds., “Mechanisms of Enforcement of Constitutional Court Decisions: Actual Problems and Possible Solutions” in Vladimir H. Hovhannisyan, ed., (Yerevan, 2007), and “The Crime of Genocide in the Statute of the International Criminal

Court” in “the Russian Yearbook of International Law”: Special Issue, Saint- Petersburg, 2003 (in Russian).
vladimirvardanyan@gmail.com

Watenpaugh, Keith

Keith David Watenpaugh is a historian and Associate Professor of Modern Islam, Human Rights and Peace at the University of California, Davis. Currently, he is a Jennings Randolph Senior Fellow in International Peace at the United States Institute of Peace and has held fellowships at Williams College, Harvard and the University of Utah. He is the author of Being Modern in the Middle East: Revolution, Nationalism, Colonialism and the Arab Middle Class (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006), and is at work on a new book examining the emergence of the international humanitarian régime in the interwar Middle East.
kwatenpaugh@ucdavis.edu

Yengoyan, Aram

Aram Yengoyan is a native of Fresno, California and grew up there. His grandfather and father edited the Armenian newspaper Nor Or throughout the late 1920s to the and early 1940s. He graduated from Fresno State College (at that time) with a BA in 1956, earned a n MA in Anthropology at UCLA in 1958 and in l963 his PH. D. was from the University of Chicago. He taught at the University of Michigan/Ann Arbor in Anthropology from 1963 to 1991 and currently he is Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Davis. While at Michigan, he and Professor Benjamin Stolz started the  Armenian  Studies  Program  in  the  1980s. His anthropological fieldwork is in Southeast Asia and also the languages and cultures of the Australian Aboriginal in the central and western Australian desert. In both areas, he has done many years of anthropological field work. Most of his writings are on cultural theory, translation and culture, anthropological theory, religion and culture, and on anthropological approaches to comparison. His latest volume as editor is Modes of Comparison: Theory and Practice (University of Michigan Press, 2006).
aayengoyan@ucdavis.edu

 

ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS
(In order of presentations)  

Avdoyan, Levon
“Unintended Consequences: Three Ancient Treaties and the Armenians” (63, 299, 387 CE)

 It is a truism among those who study the entire course of Armenian history that its lands have been the plaything of the various powers that have surrounded it through the ages. From the very first mention of the Armenians in the 6th century  BC, and throughout the extant narratives of the ancient historians who dealt with the various entities known as Armenia, it becomes clear that these antithetical powers waged wars and signed peace treaties all to create and control a client state on its borders. This paper examines three of these treaties: that of Rhandeia (63 AD), between Rome and Parthia; Nisibis, between Rome and the Sasanians of Iran (299 AD?); and the unnamed treaty of c. 387 AD, again between Rome and the Sasanians. While they ostensibly treat the geopolitical fate of Armenia Magna, Armenia Minor, and the five to seven ethnē/satrapies to the south, their implementation exerted an unexpected and powerful impact on the political, religious and cultural conditions within the lands of the Armenians that allowed the formation and retention of Armenian identity as we see it today.

 

Hewsen, Robert H.
“Armenia in the Treaty of Nisibis of 299CE”

 The Treaty of Nisibis imposed by the Romans upon the Persians in 299 concluded a series of wars between the two powers that had continued for three-quarters of a century. Although some of the terms of this treaty are known from the “Res Gestae” of the Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus (4th cent,) and some from the text of the Byzantine historian Peter the Patrician (7th cent.), others may be adduced from a careful reading of the treaty terms in the context of the period in which they were drafted.

Most important, however, is the significance of this treaty for the date of the installation of King Tiridates the Great upon the Armenian throne and the implication of this date for the date of the conversion of Armenia to Christianity. The fact that this treaty established peace between the two empires for nearly forty years perhaps explains why Roman sources have almost nothing to say about Armenia in this period (297 to 337), why the conversion of Armenia passed unnoticed in these sources, and why there is nothing to corroborate the content of the “History” of Agathangelos and that of Moses of Khoren, our only Armenian sources for the same period.

Dadoyan, Seta
“The Tradition of Medīnan Oaths, from Jerusalem Covenants, Umayyad Treatises, the

Shah’s Charter to the Sultan’s Rescripts: The Record of Islamic-Armenian Protocols”

 The Treaty made between Mu’āwiyah Ibn Abī Sufyān and Theodoros  Ṙštuni in 652 is considered to be the first protocol between the Arabs and Armenians. This paper argues that Islamic-Armenian contacts and compacts began much earlier, during the Medīnan decade (622-632) and continued through the Rashīdūn and Umayyad periods. Indeed, this treaty and another in 654, were a link in a long tradition of oaths/treaties to Armenians which continued through the Umayyad, Ayyūbid, Safavid periods, and echoed in the Ottoman Tanzimat in the 19th century. The status of the Armenians and Eastern Christians of Jerusalem was the earliest context. What is known in Armenian histories as the “Prophet’s Oath” and always referred to even after the 15th century, was an initial oath said to be granted to an Armenian deputation from Jerusalem in Medīnah during early 630s. Poorly recorded this episode became a reference. It was subsequently reconfirmed by ‘Alī in 626/4 (caliph in 656-661), and Caliph ‘Umar Ibn al-Khaṭṭāb (634-644). It seems therefore, that in view of these oaths, the 652/654 Treaty was essentially a reconfirmation of the Prophet’s Oath in spirit and content. The Umayyads renewed the compact twice in 703 and 719. The tradition was firmly held and mentioned frequently in medieval Armenian and some Arab histories. In 1187 when Ayyūbid Salāḥ ed-Dīn entered Jerusalem, led by their patriarch, the Armenians requested protection in return for their subjection, and a renewal of the “Prophet’s Oath”, well as ‘Ali’s and ‘Umar’s oaths which they brought to him.

Salāḥ ed-Dīn complied by an elaborate oath of his own to the Armenians and Eastern Christians in Jerusalem and everywhere. Over four centuries later, the so called “Charter” of Shāh Abbās in 1605 to the Armenians of New Julfa-Isfahan was ratified by a copy of a Medīnan oath allegedly to the Assyrians. Over 250 years later, and despite great differences in circumstances, the Ottoman Imperial Rescripts amounted to a regress into an early Islamic or Medīnan system of regulating relations between the Islamic state and the non-Muslim or dhimmīs, as the Armenians. This paper also argues that the authenticity of the oaths and treatises from the 7th to the 17th, even the 19th centuries – some established others not – is secondary to their historicity. The fact that each text claimed to be based on the previous one/s, as well as the record in medieval histories, produces a continuum which rightly acquires historicity as a very significant yet understudied aspect of the Armenian experience with Islam.

Preiser-Kapeller, Johannes
“Armenian Aristocrats as Diplomatic Partners of Eastern Roman Emperors, 387- 884/885 AD”

The present paper will deal with the diplomatic relations between the Armenian aristocracy (as a whole and as individuals respectively) and the most important neighbouring Christian monarch, the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Emperor. The study will concentrate on the period from the partition of Greater Armenia (387 AD) between Rome and Persia and the end of the Arsacid rule until the renewal of the Armenian monarchy under the Bagratids. During these centuries characterised by the absence of an Armenian King, foreign powers came to terms on the one hand with individual powerful noblemen, who were appointed to represnt the entire Armenia, bearing the title of marzpan, sparapet, patrik etc., and on the other hand they negotiated directly with various aristocratic houses (as they did in former times).

Based on contemporaneous Armenian, Greek and other sources the paper aims to analyze the contents of the covenants between Armenian aristocrats and Byzantine Emperors (declaration of allegiance, bestowal of titles, military assistance etc.), the diplomatic means and customs (oath, presents, charters – the “diplomatics of diplomacy”), the sources’ terminology and the interpretation of the relations between the Emperor and the Armenian aristocracy given by the sources. The description of these relations in the Armenian sources will be consequently compared to the depiction of those of the Armenian aristocrats’ to the Sasanian Great King and the Arab Caliph. In that way a “Byzantinocentric” interpretation of Armenia’s foreign relations during this period will be avoided, while at the same time efforts will be made to detect specific elements of the Armeno-byzantine political relations.

Bozoyan, Azat
“The Deabolis Treaty (1108) – An Example of the Byzantian Policy of “Divide and Rule”

 The war between Norman crusaders and Bohemund of Antioch, on the one hand, and the Byzantine emperor Alexis I Comnenus, on the other, ended with the victory of the latter. Since military actions were developed principally in the Balkans, the peace agreement was concluded in Deabolis. This agreement settled relations between the parties in the Balkans and the Near East, delineating borders and zones of influence. A copy of this document has survived in the work of Anna Comnenus – daughter Alexis I Comnenus. This treaty is the first document which has reached us that mentions the Rubenid princes of Cilicia Leon I and Toros I, along with their possessions, as vassals of the Byzantine Empire.

Comparing this text with other historical documents, we will try to show that the mention of two Rubenid princes was not a casual remark; rather it reflected Byzantine policy of promoting divided states as a means of controlling border areas of the Empire.

Mutafian, Claude
“The International Treatises of the Last Kingdom of Armenia”

 It is well known that the last Kingdom of Armenia flourished in Cilicia, pretty far away from Historical Armenia, from 1198 to 1375; it was preceded by one century of Rubenid baronny. Unlike the former Kingdoms, it was not situated between two great powers, but surrounded by a mosaic of different States and peoples: Franks, Greeks, Syriacs, Arabs, Turks, Mongols, and Mamluks. Such geopolitical conditions obviously led to the elaboration of a quite remarkable diplomacy together with numerous treaties involving the neighbors. The texts of most of them have been lost, but some of them can be more or less reconstituted through the information given by contemporary historians or colophons, as, for example, the treaty signed by King Hetum Ist with Khan Mongke he met in the Mongol capital after his legendary journey. Even better, in one single case the Arabic version of a treaty has been integrally preserved: it is the peace treaty signed in 1285 between King Levon II and the Mamluk sultan of Egypt.

These sources allow us to study this important part of Armenian diplomacy, which is impossible in the case of the former Kingdoms because of the lack of sources.

Kouyoumdjian, Armen
“When Madrid Was the Capital of Armenia”

 The purpose of this paper is to present and inform about an episode in Armenian political history which is little known to most people, interesting in its originality more than its impact, which was somewhat secondary.

Leo V, also referred-to in some sources as VI, ascended to the throne of the remains of the Armenian kingdom of Cilicia in 1373. His reign was short-lived, as the Mamluk offensive put an end to his kingdom in April 1375, at which time he was taken prisoner to Cairo, with a lifetime prohibition to leave Egypt. He was nonetheless released thanks to the efforts of King John 1st of Castile in 1382. The Castilian king granted Leo the rights to the province of Madrid, as well as Villa Real (now called Ciudad Real) and Andujar (in Andalucia). For good measure, he added a financial grant of 150,000 Maravedis per annum.

Leo set up home in the Alcazar of Madrid. He had to leave Madrid in 1385 under pressure from local notables. He went first to Aragon, and then to France, where he died in 1393 and is buried, together with the French royals, in the Basilica of St. Denis, near Paris. In his final years he played the role of political advisor and mediator at large in Europe. Following his death, the crown of Armenia passed on to Cypriot, then Venetian ruler, and was later claimed by the (now also exiled) Italian royal family of Savoy.

Kavani, Ali
“The Treaty of 1639 and its consequences for Armenia and the Armenians”

 In 1501, Iran was reunified under the Safavid dynasty. The establishment of the Safavid dynasty caused antagonism between the Persians and the Ottomans, leading to several wars of which Armenia often was the arena. In 1514, Sultan Selim I attacked Iran. Shah lsma’il I decided to follow the scorched-earth policy a policy later to be pursued by several other Safavid kings.

During the weak reign of Sultan Mohammad Khodabandeh, the Ottomans attacked Armenia in 1578 and continued doing so even after Shah Abbas I had come into power. In 1590, Shah Abbas reached an agreement with the Ottomans but he was forced to give up Eastern Armenia and some other territories. In the autumn of 1603, however, he decided to recapture the occupied lands. He conquered Ordubad, Akulis, Julfa, and other cities. In order to deprive the Ottomans from supplies, he burned down most of Eastern Armenia. In 1604 and 1605, some 250,000 to 300,000 Armenians were forced to migrate to Central Iran as a result.

In 1639, the Treaty of Zohab or Qasr-e Shirin was concluded. Its main aim was to put an end to the never-ending wars and hostilities between the Ottoman and the Safavid Empires and to determine the borders. One of the consequences was that historic Armenia, like some other places, was partitioned between the two empires. The territories located west of the fortress of Kars (Western Armenia) went to the Ottomans. The Safavids, on the other hand, took the lands east of Ani and the Arpachay River (Eastern Armenia).

Aslanian, Sebouh
“Julfan Agreements with Foreign states and Chartered Companies: Exploring the limits of Julfan Collective Self-Representation in the Early Modern Age”

 This paper examines a series of trade agreements signed between the Armenian merchants of New Julfa, Isfahan, and foreign states and/or their chartered East India companies during the second half of the seventeenth century. The paper focuses on the most important of these agreements, namely on “The Agreement of the East India Company with the Armenian Nation,” signed in London on June 22, 1688. While previous works have, for the most part, studied this treaty in isolation, my study seeks to examine this Agreement within the larger context of similar agreements negotiated between the Julfans and other foreign entities, including agreements with the Russian state (1667-1673), the Duchy of Courland (Modern day Latvia), and Sweden (1697), as well as several aborted attempts to negotiate with the French East India Company (1680) and the upstart Royal Company of Scotland (1690s). In the first part of the paper, I argue that these international agreements were important for Julfan merchants because they provided them alternative trade routes for exporting their silk from Iran and also enabled them to expand their trade network into new markets and economic regions.

In the second part, I explore the institutional mechanisms behind the signing of these agreements. I argue that influential individuals or families acting as self- styled representatives of the Julfan community as opposed to an institutionalized “corporate body” capable of collectively and in a sustained fashion representing the “Armenian Nation” were responsible for initiating or signing these agreements. Building on previous work done by Edmund Herzig, my reflections here are aimed at exploring Julfa’s institutional ability to engage in collective national representation of the sort usually associated with national states and their centralized chartered companies with whom the Julfans were interacting in the early modern world.

Bardakjian, Kevork
“The Armenian National ‘Constitution’: a Dhimmi-Muslim ‘Contract’?”

 This paper will deal with the Armenian national ‘constitution’ as perhaps the first and last expression of the ‘contract’ between an Ottoman Muslim ruler and his Christian subjects. It will cover the period from the 1840s to the late 1880s. The  idea is to look at the constitution as an administrative ‘contract’ or instrument and how the Ottoman government (the reformers) and various Armenian factions perceived it within the larger context of the Armenian world: parallels to be drawn with the ‘Polozhenie;’ flashbacks to other, earlier Ottoman berats; and the impact of the constitution on the Armenian realities, on the rise of the Armenian Question and some related issues.

Hovannisian, Richard
“The Treaty of Alexandropol, December 1920”

 The Treaty of Alexandropol (Alexandrapol; Gumri) was signed shortly after midnight on December 2/3, 1920. Even at that hour, it was undoubtedly understood that technically the treaty between the Republic of Armenia and the government of the Turkish Grand National Assembly in Ankara was illegal and void because one side represented a government that no longer existed. Hours earlier the last cabinet of the independent Armenian republic (1918-1920) had confirmed the transfer of power to the new regime of Soviet Armenia. This fact notwithstanding, the boundaries drawn in the crushing treaty for Armenia became, with minor rectifications, the permanent border between Soviet Armenia (and later the Soviet Union) and Turkey (later the Republic of Turkey) as confirmed in the subsequent treaties of Moscow and Kars in 1921 and Lausanne in 1923.

This discussion focuses on negotiation of the treaty, the dominance of General Kazim Karabekir, the virtual absence of maneuverability by the Armenian delegation headed by former prime minister Alexandre Khatisian, the evasive tactics of Soviet observer Budu Mdivani, and the perplexing exchanges between Khatisian and the temporary government of Soviet Armenia (Dro Kanayan) prior to the official signing ceremony of the treaty.

The Treaty of Alexandropol left the rump Armenian republic entirely exposed, as it removed from Armenian sovereignty the defensive mountain range that extends northward from Mount Ararat in the former Armenian districts of Surmalu (Igdir) and Kars. Armenia would be the all round loser, becoming a small, landlocked, vulnerable state that found a degree of security within the borders of the USSR until1991, when it would regain its independence but again as a painfully small, landlocked, and vulnerable state.

Yengoyan, Aram
“No War, No Peace”

 With the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk on the 3rd of March, 1918, war ended between Germany and the Soviet Union, which was only in its infancy. The Armenian vilayets of Ardahan, Batum and Kars, which were part of the Tsarist Empire, were ceded to the Imperial Powers and eventually became part of the Ottoman Empire and later Turkey. This loss of traditional Armenian lands  was never changed or modified in the various treaties which were critical in the formation of Armenia from l9l8 to and throughout the 1920’s.

Vardanyan, Vladimir
The Issues of the Legal Validity of Peace Treaties of Armenia and Relating to Armenia: A Legal Analysis”

This paper discusses a series of treaties signed by or related to Armenia, from the First Republic to the present, especially as they relate to provisions in these treaties regarding Armenia’s borders with its neighbors, particularly Turkey and Azerbaijan. In the first part, the paper will focus on the Treaties of Batum, Sevres, Alexandrobol, Moscow and Kars (1918-1921) and Lausanne (1923) and on the validity of these treaties and their present status.

In the second part the paper will analyze (a) the Declaration on Independence of Armenia (1990) and its legal implications for Armenia’s  obligations regarding these treaties and (b) the options open to the Republic of Armenia regarding these treaties and the possibility and advisability of negotiating a new treaty with Turkey.

Papazian, Dennis
“The Treaty of Lausanne, 1923”

 The Treaty of Lausanne grants certain distinct right to religious (read Armenian, Greek, Jewish) minorities in Turkey. Most of these rights have been roundly ignored and breeched. The Turkish government appointed a commission of distinguished Turks several years ago to study the treatment of religious minorities and to report whether or not the terms of the Treaty were being followed. The official report, which was immediately sidelined by the Turkish government, points out several important violations, such as the law on foundations which treats Armenians foundations as “foreign” entities and grants them only limited rights viz a viz those full rights granted to the “Turkish” foundations.

Another area is the Turkish government’s interference in Armenian schools which offend both the intent as well as the letter of the Treaty guaranteeing free establishment of language schools for “religious minorities.” Armenians have the right under international law to sue the Turkish government in the International Court of Justice, but it must do it through an established state, for example Armenia or Greece. While the Armenians would undoubtedly win such a case, there is no means for the court to enforce its decision and it might compel the Turkish state to treat Armenians even more harshly than even at present. More effort should be expended by the academic community, especially specialists of international law, to study the Treaty of Lausanne and the violations thereof by the Turkish  government.

Dundar, Fuat
“Diplomacy of Statistics: Discussing the Number of Armenians During Diplomatic Negotiations ( 1878-1914)”

 This paper will highlight the key role played by statistics in the Armenian Question during diplomatic negotiations between the Ottoman Empire and Great Powers. Beginning with the Treaty of Berlin (1878), statistics itself became a way to do policy. The Ottoman Armenians claimed a certain territory arguing that they constitute a majority in that area. As for the Ottoman Empire, it wanted to legitimize the apparent maladministration arguing that the Muslims are majority. As the third party, though not to be treated as a block, the Europeans legitimized their intervention in the name of ‘objectivity’ and ‘science.’ This paper will argue that statistics, having played a significant role in the formulation of the projected  reforms for the Eastern Region in 1914 (Vilayat-i Şarkiyye Islahatı), also ended assuming a crucial role in the Unionists’ destructive policy during World War I.

Taslakyan, Lusine
“Armenia in International Environmental Conventions”

Armenia is a signatory to over 28 international environmental agreements, among which eighteen are conventions. The most important and well-known environmental conventions ratified by the Republic of Armenia are: UN Convention on Biological Diversity (UNCBD), UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), Convention on Wetlands of International Importance Especially as Waterfowl Habitat (Ramsar), UNECE Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision Making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (Aarhus Convention). The Ministry of Nature Protection of Armenia is the coordinating body and executor of these treaties and conventions on the national level.

The following aspects of Armenia’s participation in international environmental agreements will be further discussed in the conference paper: commitments of the Armenian Government towards implementation of global environmental conventions, official steps undertaken after ratification, and relevant implementation issues.

Sanamyan, Emil
“The OSCE-CFE Treaty and Breaches in the International Legal System: Armenia’s Predicament Today”

 The Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty was born out of détente efforts between U.S.-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and U.S.S.R.-led Warsaw Pact which led to the establishment of the Conference for Security Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) in 1975. Seeking to decrease risks of warfare in Europe and increase transparency, CSCE member states negotiated the CFE Treaty in 1990 setting limits on sizes of armed forces and their weapons holdings for each member state.

With USSR dissolving, its quota was subdivided as part of the 1992 Tashkent Agreement between new CSCE/OSCE member states that emerged. Armenia and its fellow former Soviet republics inherited the treaty by virtue of their independence and CSCE (now OSCE) membership. The quotas provide identical caps for the three Caucasus armies’ personnel and weapons’ holdings.

Theoretically, the treaty should help maintain the balance of forces and make the threat of renewed warfare between Armenia and Azerbaijan less likely. But several key circumstances – both peculiar to the region and of external origin – work to undermine the treaty, adding to the uncertainties of the region. Armenia is located on the fringes of Europe where several international security regimes (NATO/EU, CSTO/SCO) come into contact and threat of conventional warfare is real. The CFE Treaty is one of the few legal mechanisms that could be used to restrain the arms race currently underway in the Caucasus. But to be effective, it would require active diplomacy by Armenia and likeminded countries.

Shougarian, Rouben
“Yielding More to Gain the Essential”

 Armenia regained its independence in 1991 but was left in a power vacuum. Though rejected by independence, membership in the USSR had provided a security umbrella. The marriage of convenience between Russia and Armenian had dissolved through a civilized divorce. Armenia had to navigate through the war in Nagorno Karabakh, and extract macro-economic reforms from the teeth of economic collapse and blockades. She also had to manage Russian national interests, tempering relations when Russian interests were in discord with Armenia’s security agenda, speeding up wherever the vital interests of the two countries coincided.

There evolved the need for a new legal basis for relations with Russia, for a real partnership instead of a satellite status for Armenia, though this meant yielding more to gain the essential. Though the Russian military base in Armenia provided a psychological security guarantee, membership in the CIS and the Collective Security Agreement were not sufficient. Hence the 1997 Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation between Armenia and Russia. Currently 70 % of the military serving in the Russian are Armenian draftees. Throughout this period Armenia avoided unnecessary irritants for Russia but held its own, thus being the only CIS country that refused to join the Customs Union and initiating two new cooperation formats with the US (The US-Armenian Task Force and the Security Dialogue. Nonetheless, challenges remain.

Garibian, Sevane
“From the 1915 Allied Declaration to the Treaty of Sèvres : The Legacy of the Armenian Genocide in International Criminal Law”

 The first “official” international use of the concept of crime against humanity dates back to May 24, 1915. That day, the governments of France, Great Britain, and Russia issued a joint Declaration condemning the deportation and systematic extermination of the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire, and denouncing these acts as constituting “new crimes against humanity and civilization.” Though failing to define it, the new concept was used a few years later at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, when mandating the Commission on the Responsibilities of the Authors of War and on Enforcement of Penalties for Violations of the Laws and Customs of War. The 1919 Commission’s work had a great impact on the making of the Treaty of Sèvres 1920 and the Nurenberg Charter.

Not surprisingly, the Treaty of Sèvres was never put into effect, but was rather replaced by the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923 that did not contain any provisions related to the prosecution of Turkish nationals for these specific crimes due to the Declaration of Amnesty.” Nevertheless, the contribution of the 1915 Allied Declaration, the 1919 Commission’s work and the Treaty of Sèvres is revolutionary and remains a “key” for a better understanding of the emergence of international criminal law.

Watenpaugh, Keith
“The League of Nations and the Formation of Armenian Genocide Denial”

Rather than seeing Armenian Genocide denial as a unique product of the Kemalist Era or an expression of the formulation of Post-Ottoman Turkish national subjectivity, I argue in this paper that this narrative first formed during the early 1920s in the crucible created by the modern humanitarian régime. This humanitarian régime was defined in large part by a series post-WWI treaties, which fore grounded Wilsonian idealism in way that created a public and adversarial relationship between representatives of the victors of WWI and the residual Ottoman Empire. Within this environment calls for humanitarian intervention in Anatolia and Istanbul were intense and the final disposition of the empire unresolved. It was also driven by the way the plight of Armenian and Greek refugees

— especially that of women and children — had captured the imagination of western philanthropic and human rights organizations. Critically, the integration of the cause of women and children — which touched on issues of forced conversion to Islam of orphans, human trafficking and slavery — changed the international discussion about the events of 1915 in an unprecedented fashion, from one that focused on holding the Ottoman military and civilian bureaucracy responsible for a collection of war-time massacres and deportations of civilians to one in which ideas and beliefs about the practices, prerogatives and privileges of Muslims in Ottoman Turkish society were deemed morally repugnant, even perhaps indictable as crimes against humanity.

Faced with this unique situation, Turkish diplomats, bureaucrats and intellectuals first formulated a coherent narrative of denial for use in rebuffing international public and diplomatic criticism of the Ottoman Empire and then Turkey. Critically this particular denialist narrative was designed to defend the Ottoman Empire against a specific set of challenges implicit and explicit in the emerging history of the Armenian Genocide that suffused this new environment,  and where humanitarianism played such a prominent role in the retroactive justification of World War I. The price of “losing” the argument with that history was not just “academic,” but rather carried with it the potential of further territorial dismemberment of the empire and certainly loss of political sovereignty; less overt, but no less important was how this narrative cloaked in claims of sovereignty and national victimization Muslim political, social and cultural preeminence in the Ottoman Empire and its republican successor, as well as practices associated with domestic patriarchy and forms of slavery. At the same time, the cumulative intellectual output placed an early species of cultural relativism, even claims of Islamophobia, in the face of calls by the West of civil equality and if not complete, then at least a limited form of female and non-Muslim emancipation.

Ohanian, Pascual
“International Treaties on International Penal Law Concerning Crimes against Humanity. Juridical Experience in Argentina and Chile. Applicability to the Turkish- Ottoman State and Turkish Republic for Acts Perpetrated from 1910 to 1923 and Afterwards”

 From the late 19th century up until the beginning of the 21st, several diplomatic instruments have been agreed upon in the field of International Penal Law. The 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties also includes the principle of ius cogens which amounts to a regulatory scheme based on common law that aims at the protection of supreme values accepted and acknowledged by the international community.

This paper will focus on a typology of crime that includes those gravely inhuman acts which involve deliberate or systematic or large-scale state supported violations against a civilian population or a part thereof, during peacetime or war. Although most of those legal instruments do not specifically mention Armenia or the Armenian people, many of them encompass historical situations that, to this day, have had tacit but serious impacts on both. The events experienced by Chile and Argentina during the 1970s shed light on such legal aspects as impunity, investigation of the facts, punishment against the internationally responsible State, the imprescriptibility and retroactivity of rights in crimes against humanity and, in some Codes, the penalization of the denial, trivialization, or the justification of such crimes. And, finally the paper addresses the ways these international instruments project onto the destruction of the Armenian national group committed by the Turkish State during and after the First World War.

Kessedjian, Catherine
“Beyond Treaties”

Historical studies allow people to have a better understanding of the present and forge an analysis for the future. In the case of the Armenians, the past teaches us that the passage from Statehood to the status of non-State actor, and vice versa, engenders difficulties which are not yet settled. The purpose of this paper is to study ways beyond treaties to reach a settlement on (if possible) all grievances between the Armenians and Turkey.

Arbitration may be one of the means to reach such a settlement. The paper will explore how an arbitration proceeding may be put into place; what would be the steps to be followed towards that aim; what are the obstacles to be overcome; what could be the expected results.

ARMENIAN STUDIES PROGRAM

Director: Prof. Gerard Libaridian

Administrator: Ms. Gloria Caudill

1080 South University Avenue, Suite 3633

Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1106

Tel: (734) 763-0622/Fax: (734) 763-9418

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Website: www.ii.umich.edu/asp