Justice Initiatives
Rerooted listens to the needs of Armenian communities to explore various mechanisms for seeking justice. We follow the lead of our narrators to craft innovative strategies to pursue accountability and recognition across different legal jurisdictions.
International Legal Advocacy
Rerooted has been involved in various efforts to raise the issue of the Armenians of Artsakh in various international legal forums. Rerooted partnered with professors, students, and human rights law clinics to help build a case for the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh, integrating the evidence we were collecting into a legal analysis for courts. We presented our legal evidence and arguments to the International Criminal Court. Rerooted has also submitted reports to UN mechanisms including the Committee Against Torture and the Special Rapporteur for the Right to Adequate Housing.
Rerooted is grateful for the support of Leiden University’s International Humanitarian Law Clinic to analyze crimes committed during the Blockade and attacks in Nagorno-Karabakh from December 2022 to present, categorizing the harms as forced deportation and persecution. Their work was also greatly supported by diligent students from Harvard Law School’s Advocates for Human Rights and Columbia Law School’s Human Rights Institute- Advocates Program.
Harvard Law School’s Human Rights Entrepreneurs Clinic took on Rerooted as client for the Fall 2023 semester in which students are supervised by faculty clinicians. The team is exploring litigation avenues in national jurisdictions for the harms committed by Azerbaijan against Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia from 2020 to the present.
Contributions to International Legal Organizations
Rerooted works to bring Armenian voices and perspectives to existing international justice and human rights non-governmental and legal organizations. In the context of Syria, we saw that Armenians were often missing from other organizations’ initiatives, who nevertheless saw the value in capturing testimonies from all of Syria’s minority communities. We have signed memorandums of understanding with the United Nation’s International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism as well as Syria Justice and Accountability Center to add our testimonies to their collections for the aims of case building and accountability.
