UCLA School of Law, Room 1347
Registration for this event is required and free.
Please join us for a presentation by human rights attorney Ms. Siranush Sahakyan, President of the International and Comparative Law Center, Yerevan, Armenia, examining the criminal trials of Armenians in Baku in the wake of the 2023 war in Nagorno-Karabakh/Artsakh.
Ms. Sahakyan will address whether participation in the civilian, political, or administrative institutions of an unrecognized entity can, without proof of specific individual criminal conduct, be treated as criminal in itself.
Particular emphasis will be placed on the distinction between the Nagorno-Karabakh/Artsakh context—where neither the United Nations nor the international community collectively designated the entity itself as terrorist or inherently unlawful—and situations in which the Security Council or the international community has expressly called for collective non-recognition of an unlawful territorial situation or entity. The presentation will consider whether non-recognition alone can lawfully transform otherwise ordinary civilian or public activities into criminal conduct. A Q&A following the presentation will be moderated by The Promise Institute Los Angeles Executive Director Hadar Harris.
Speaker:
Siranush Sahakyan is a human rights lawyer and legal expert with more than 15 years of experience in human rights advocacy, judicial reform, anti-corruption policy, and strategic litigation. She has held senior public positions in Armenia and has served as an ad hoc Judge at the European Court of Human Rights.
She is the President of the International and Comparative Law Center, Armenia Director of the Armenian Legal Center for Human Rights and Justice, and a member of the Chamber of Advocates of Armenia. A founder of several civil society organizations, including Protection of Rights Without Borders, she has been actively engaged in advancing the rule of law, accountability, and human rights protection in Armenia.
Ms. Sahakyan has extensive experience litigating before international and regional human rights mechanisms, with a particular focus on war crimes, enforced disappearances, arbitrary detention, torture, and other grave human rights violations. She currently represents Armenian prisoners of war and their families in international proceedings and combines legal advocacy with documentation, policy engagement, and public outreach.
Directions and Parking
- On-street parking adjacent to the Law School building is first-come, first-served. It is only offered on the eastern flank of the school, along Charles E. Young Drive East. Pay at the parking kiosk by entering your vehicle's license plate and selecting a daily rate, then be sure to display the ticket on the vehicle's dash board.
- UCLA has a number of parking structures. Be sure to read the placards for any space you park in, to ensure it's available for visitors.
- UCLA's Visitor Parking Webpage
- Parking Structure 3 offers the most visitor parking. It is a structure with connected North and South buildings. In each, the lower floors are reserved for visitor parking. On higher floors, the spaces nearest the North building's elevator are reserved for visitor parking. Parking Structure 3 is an 15 minute walk to the Law School building.
- $17/day visitor parking rate
- Parking Structure 2 offers visitor parking on Level 1 and part of Level 2, and is an 10 minute walk to the Law School building. Note Structure 2 is often quite busy.
- $17/day visitor parking rate
- Parking Structure 5 offers the least visitor parking of the three, with visitor parking located only on the Level 6/Rooftop Level. A skybridge connects the Rooftop Level to campus. It is an 8 minute walk to the Law School.
- $31/day visitor parking rate
Entering UCLA Law's Building
- Our main entrance is located on the south-western corner of the Law School building and accessed by a flight of wide stairs. (Click the link for exact coordinates on Google Maps.)
- For those who may require an accessible walkway, a ramp located at the front of the building wraps around Glickman Courtyard and begins here. It leads to an entrance whose door can be opened by activating a clearly marked square, metal button on the exterior of the building. (Click the link for exact coordinates on Google Maps.)
Sponsor(s): The Promise Institute for Human Rights, the Armenian Bar Association, the Armenian Legal Center for Justice and Human Rights, The Promise Armenian Institute at UCLA, UCLA Law's Armenian Law Students Association, and ANCA Western Region.
