Shooting at civilians or civilian targets to destroy them rather than at the military targets nearby is prohibited irrespective of what kind of weapons is used, expert in international law Vladimir Vardanyan told Tert.am.

“Using any kind of weapons against civilians is prohibited by international humanitarian law,” Mr Vardanyan said.

“As regards shelling of civilian targets, I should note that it is not the Geneva Convention. Rather, it is a provision on military targets, which deals with means and the First Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions partly regulates it. But the logic is clear.”

Secondly, the conflicting parties are obliged to deploy their military facilities as far as possible from civilian facilities to prevent damage to civilian facilities.

Elaborating on the types of weapons, Mr Vardanyan said that some of them are prohibited. On the other hand, the methods of using acceptable weapons can be banned as well.

Azerbaijan has recently used prohibited weapons on numerous occasions.

Recent expert discussions have shown that Armenia cannot apply to the International Court now for the simple reason that Azerbaijan did not ratified the First Protocol. And neither Armenia nor Azerbaijan has ratified the the Rome Statute.

However, Armenia could apply to the UN or to the European Court – and it actually did.