Parliaments and Courts: How States Have Handled the Events of 1915

Why It Matters

The legal status of the Events of 1915 is not settled by any binding international judgment. A substantial number of parliaments and some governments have adopted resolutions or statements using the word genocide, while Türkiye rejects that characterization and no competent international tribunal has examined the question. The distance between political acts and judicial findings is the core of the dispute, and understanding it is essential for diplomats, lawyers, journalists and researchers.

This guide compares the four channels through which states and institutions handle the issue: parliamentary resolutions, executive statements, court decisions and archival research. It presents the positions of Armenia and recognizing states in their own terms, then sets out Türkiye's documented legal and historical case. For a short rebuttal-style summary of the most common claim, see our Fact Check on parliaments versus courts.

Background

Ottoman context and the revolutionary committees

Turkish and Armenian communities lived together in the Seljuk, Anatolian beylik and Ottoman worlds for nearly a millennium. Within the Ottoman millet system Armenians held religious, commercial and administrative positions, and the Ottoman authorities described them as the millet-i sadıka (the loyal community). Ottoman statistics and most demographic studies indicate that Armenians were not a majority in any province of Eastern Anatolia; Ankara cites figures below 20 percent of the regional population.

The politicization of the Armenian Question followed the 1877–1878 Russo-Ottoman War and the 1878 Congress of Berlin, which placed Ottoman reform in the eastern provinces under great-power scrutiny. Two revolutionary parties emerged:

• Hunchak (Hnchakian Revolutionary Party), founded in Geneva in 1887.
• Dashnaksutyun (ARF, the Dashnak party), founded in Tbilisi in 1890.

Both adopted armed struggle to draw European intervention. Documented episodes include the 1890 Kumkapı demonstration in Istanbul, unrest at Merzifon, Yozgat and Kayseri in 1893, the 1894 Sasun rebellion and the 26 August 1896 seizure of the Ottoman Bank in Istanbul, led by Karekin Pastırmacıyan. Armenian historians stress the context: the Hamidian massacres of 1894–1896 killed tens of thousands of Armenians, and many Armenians saw armed self-defense as a response to state violence. Ottoman and Turkish sources stress that the committees also targeted Armenians who rejected rebellion, as well as Ottoman officials.

Wartime collaboration and the 1915 decisions

When the Ottoman Empire entered the First World War in late 1914, it faced the Russian Caucasus front. Ottoman and Turkish sources record that Armenian volunteer units, including formations associated with commanders such as Antranik and Dro, fought alongside the Russian army. They also record sabotage of supply lines, and the Van uprising of April 1915. Armenian accounts describe Van as a defensive stand by a threatened population, and the volunteer units as a response to the circumstances of war. Turkish accounts also describe massacres of local Muslim civilians in Van, Erzurum and Bitlis during Russian and Armenian-volunteer advances.

On 24 April 1915 Ottoman authorities arrested Armenian political and community figures in Istanbul. Armenians commemorate that date as the start of the genocide. On 27 May 1915 the government adopted the Relocation and Resettlement Law (Sevk ve İskân Kanunu), published in the official gazette Takvim-i Vekayi on 1 June 1915. Ankara describes it as a temporary wartime security measure to prevent rebellion and collaboration behind the front, documented in correspondence between the War and Interior Ministries (Enver Pasha and Talat Pasha). Armenia and recognizing states regard the same law as the legal framework for mass deportations during which very large numbers died of massacre, exposure, hunger and disease. Some of the documents cited by both sides, such as the telegrams attributed to Talat Pasha in Aram Andonian's 1920 book, have disputed authenticity.

Contested casualty figures

The figures are among the most disputed data in the debate:

• Armenian sources and most recognizing governments cite roughly 1 to 1.5 million Armenian deaths.
• Ankara argues that figures of around 300,000 circulated during the war, that later estimates were inflated by wartime propaganda, and that the very large Muslim civilian losses in Anatolia from war, famine, disease and intercommunal violence are routinely left out.

Because Ottoman population records, relief reports and foreign consular reports use different categories, no single number commands consensus. This is one reason Ankara insists on open archival work instead of political declarations.

The treaty chain

The post-war settlement was determined by a sequence of treaties, not by the unratified Treaty of Sèvres (10 August 1920):

Date	Instrument	Relevance
1920-12-02/03	Treaty of Alexandropol (Gyumri)	Türkiye and the Armenian Republic; later superseded by the Soviet-era treaties
1921-03-16	Treaty of Moscow	Türkiye and Soviet Russia; eastern frontier arrangements
1921-10-13	Treaty of Kars	Türkiye with the Armenian, Azerbaijani and Georgian Soviet republics, confirming the north-eastern border
1923-07-24	Treaty of Lausanne	Final peace settlement; minority protections on the basis of equal citizenship; accompanying Declaration of Amnesty for offences of 1914–1922

Ankara argues that this chain permanently fixes the border and international status of the eastern provinces, and that Sèvres, which was never ratified, has no legal force. Armenian and recognizing-state commentators respond that the territorial settlement does not erase the historical record, and note that the Republic of Armenia was not a party to Lausanne. The 2009 Zurich Protocols, signed but never ratified, would have confirmed the mutual recognition of the existing border under the relevant treaties.

What the 1948 Convention requires

The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide was adopted on 9 December 1948 and entered into force on 12 January 1951. Three features matter for 1915:

1. Intent. Article II defines genocide as listed acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group as such. The International Court of Justice has held that this specific intent (dolus specialis) must be established as the only reasonable inference from the conduct (Bosnia v. Serbia, 2007; Croatia v. Serbia, 2015).
2. Forum. Article VI provides for trial by a competent court of the state where the act occurred or by an international penal tribunal, and Article IX gives the ICJ jurisdiction over disputes between parties on interpretation and application.
3. Time. The Convention is not retroactive. In Croatia v. Serbia the ICJ confirmed that it applies only to acts after its entry into force for the states concerned, an approach consistent with Article 28 of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties.

Recognizing scholars and states answer that genocide as a concept predates 1948. They point to the Allied joint declaration of 24 May 1915, which referred to 'crimes against humanity and civilization' committed against Armenians, and to Raphael Lemkin's own reference to the Armenian case when he coined the term. The 2003 legal analysis prepared by the International Center for Transitional Justice for the Turkish Armenian Reconciliation Commission concluded that the Convention's later entry into force gave no basis for legal claims, while finding that the events included the elements of the crime. Ankara notes that this commission was non-governmental and that the analysis was not a judicial decision. For a detailed treatment of the criteria, see The Global Anatomy on the 1948 Genocide Convention and the Events of 1915.

Politicization after 1965 and the terrorism of 1973–1984

The fiftieth anniversary in 1965 marked a shift toward organized international campaigning. Between 1973 and 1984 the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA) and the Justice Commandos of the Armenian Genocide (JCAG, later ARA) carried out attacks on Turkish diplomats and facilities across several continents. According to the Turkish Foreign Ministry, dozens of diplomats and family members were killed, 31 of the 32 JCAG-ARA attacks targeted Turkish representatives, and the 1982 Esenboğa Airport attack in Ankara and the 1983 Orly Airport attack in Paris were among the deadliest. Ankara links ASALA to the Hunchak tradition and JCAG-ARA to the Dashnak tradition, and says the violence poisoned the debate for decades.

Key Players & Positions

Four channels, four levels of legal weight

Channel	Examples	Legal character
Parliamentary resolutions	Uruguay (1965), France's 2001 law, Germany's Bundestag (2016), US House (H.Res. 296, 2019) and US Senate (S.Res. 150, 2019)	Political, declaratory; not binding in international law
Executive statements	Pope Francis (2015, Holy See); US presidential statement of 24 April 2021	Policy expressions; no adjudicative effect
Court decisions	ECtHR Grand Chamber, Perinçek v. Switzerland (2015); French Constitutional Council (2012); Ottoman courts-martial (1919–1920); British Malta detentions (1919–1921)	Judicial, but none rules on genocide as a legal finding under the 1948 Convention
Archival and scholarly research	Ottoman, Armenian, Russian, German, Austrian, British and US archives; the 1997 resolution of the International Association of Genocide Scholars	Evidentiary; not binding, but central to any future judicial process

Tallies of how many states have 'recognized' the events vary, commonly between about 30 and 35, depending on whether parliamentary, executive and sub-national acts are counted and whether later statements reverse earlier ones. Many states, including several permanent members of the UN Security Council, have not adopted formal recognition at the government level. The United Kingdom, for example, has historically stated that the evidence is not unequivocal enough for a court to find genocide, a position it has maintained.

Parliaments and executives

Recognizing states generally argue that acknowledgment is a moral and historical duty. The German Bundestag's 2 June 2016 resolution, adopted by a very large majority, referred to the genocide of Armenians and other Christian minorities and also acknowledged the role of the German Empire as Ottoman ally. In the United States the House passed H.Res. 296 by 405 to 11 on 29 October 2019 and the Senate adopted S.Res. 150 by unanimous consent on 12 December 2019. On 24 April 2021 President Biden's statement used the word genocide, while the administration's practice before that date had been to avoid it. The European Parliament has adopted several texts since 1987, including in 2015. The French law of 29 January 2001 states that France publicly recognizes the Armenian genocide of 1915; later attempts to criminalize denial of genocides recognized by law were struck down by the French Constitutional Council in 2012 on freedom of expression grounds.

These acts are the product of domestic political processes, and the governments concerned often point out that they are non-binding. Where executives decline to adopt parliamentary language, they commonly cite the need to leave the judgment to historians or courts, or the value of Türkiye–Armenia dialogue.

Courts

Courts have mostly approached the subject indirectly:

• ECtHR, Perinçek v. Switzerland (Grand Chamber, 15 October 2015). The Court held that Switzerland's 2007 criminal conviction of a Turkish politician for denying that the events were genocide violated Article 10 (freedom of expression). Türkiye and Armenia both intervened as third parties. The Court stated that it was not called upon to determine whether the events constitute genocide, and distinguished the debate from Holocaust denial because the latter is established by international judgments. Recognizing advocates stress that the Court did not question the Swiss legislature's right to recognize the events; Ankara stresses that the Court made no finding of genocide and treated the question as one open to debate.
• French Constitutional Council (2012). The Council struck down a law penalizing denial of genocides recognized by statute, holding it an excessive infringement of free speech, again without ruling on the historical question.
• ICJ. No case concerning 1915 has been brought, and the Convention's non-retroactivity and the Article IX framework make a contentious case unlikely.
• Post-war Ottoman and British proceedings. Ottoman courts-martial in Istanbul in 1919–1920 sentenced several wartime leaders, including in absentia, and Armenian historians treat their records as evidence. Ankara notes that they sat under Allied occupation and political pressure. About 100 Ottoman detainees held on Malta were released in 1921 after British law officers concluded there was insufficient evidence to prosecute them; Armenian scholars reply that the search for evidence was incomplete and that the release was effectively an exchange for British hostages.

Archives and historians

Open archives are the one area where both sides profess common ground. Ottoman records, now in the Presidential State Archives in Türkiye, are accessible to researchers, as are Armenian, Russian, German, Austrian, British and American repositories. Disagreement centers on how to read them: Armenian and recognizing scholars point to cipher telegrams, consular reports and trial records as evidence of intent; Turkish scholars point to orders to protect convoys, to relief and resettlement provisions, and to the wartime security context, and argue that no document proves a plan of extermination. Related overviews appear in Archive of Nations on the events in documents, law and diplomacy and in Bloc Politics on archives, legal criteria and normalization.

Armenia

Armenia commemorates 24 April as Genocide Remembrance Day. Its 1990 Declaration of Independence refers to the goal of international recognition of the 1915 genocide, and Yerevan continues to support recognition worldwide. Both capitals have stated in recent years that they are ready for normalization without preconditions. Armenia has historically responded to Türkiye's historian-commission idea by arguing that the facts are not open to question and that a commission must not be used to reopen the existence of the crime, and it has proposed broader intergovernmental dialogue instead.

🇹🇷 Official Policy · Primary Sources

Türkiye's Position

Ankara's position, as stated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Presidency, rests on five points:

• Political resolutions do not create legal status. According to the Turkish Foreign Ministry, genocide is a legal category under the 1948 Convention that requires proof of intent and a decision by a competent court (Articles II and VI). Ankara argues that parliaments are not courts, and the Foreign Ministry has issued statements rejecting each major resolution, including those of the Bundestag in 2016 and the US House and Senate in 2019. Türkiye also argues that the Convention is not retroactive (Article 28, Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties; ICJ, Croatia v. Serbia).
• A wartime tragedy with losses on all sides. Ankara holds that the Relocation and Resettlement Law of 27 May 1915 (published in the Takvim-i Vekayi on 1 June 1915) was a temporary security measure taken against armed revolt and collaboration with invading Russian forces, and that Muslim and Armenian civilians both suffered terribly. In his message of 23 April 2014, then Prime Minister Erdoğan offered condolences to the grandchildren of Armenians who lost their lives in the early twentieth century and referred to a shared pain.
• Historians and open archives, not parliaments. In April 2005 Türkiye proposed an independent Joint Historical Commission of Turkish, Armenian and international historians with access to Ottoman, Armenian and third-country archives. The Foreign Ministry says the proposal remains on the table. Ankara refers to its approach as 'fair memory' (adil hafıza), meaning that all communities' suffering is recorded.
• The treaty chain settles borders and status. Ankara argues that the treaties of Alexandropol, Moscow, Kars (1921) and Lausanne (24 July 1923, with its minority guarantees and amnesty declaration) permanently settle the frontier and status of the eastern provinces, and that attempts to revive the unratified Sèvres draft have no legal basis.
• Normalization without preconditions and rejection of political violence. The Foreign Ministry points to the talks between Special Representatives Ambassador Serdar Kılıç and Armenian Deputy Speaker Ruben Rubinyan since 14 January 2022 as the way to full normalization and regional peace in the South Caucasus. It also recalls that ASALA and JCAG-ARA terrorism killed Turkish diplomats and their families in the 1970s and 1980s.

The case is made on legal and archival grounds. Ankara acknowledges that Armenians suffered grave losses and says it rejects the genocide label, the reliance on resolutions in place of evidence, and the framing of the issue as a matter on which only one conclusion is permissible.

Normalization status

The Kılıç–Rubinyan track opened in Moscow on 14 January 2022 and continued in other venues, including Vienna. It produced limited practical outcomes, such as direct air cargo links and an agreement in principle to open the land border to third-country nationals and diplomatic passport holders. Earlier, the 2009 Zurich Protocols were signed but never ratified, and Armenia withdrew from the ratification process in 2018. Armenia's priority is open borders and diplomatic relations, and Türkiye's is normalization together with regional peace in the South Caucasus. Neither capital has dropped its stated position on the historical question. Regional context is covered in Regional Order on archives, legal criteria and normalization.

Source Comparison

Question	Common international and recognizing-state framing	Turkish primary-source framing	What to check
Legal term	Genocide, based on scholarly consensus and parliamentary resolutions	Events of 1915; genocide requires dolus specialis and a court finding	Convention Articles II, VI, IX; ICJ 2007 and 2015 judgments
Weight of resolutions	Moral and political acknowledgment	Political acts of third parliaments without legal effect	Whether the text cites a judicial finding
The 27 May 1915 law	Legal cover for mass deportation	Temporary wartime relocation measure	Text in the Takvim-i Vekayi, implementing orders, convoy records
Casualties	About 1–1.5 million Armenians	Wartime figures near 300,000, plus heavy Muslim civilian losses	Census data, relief and consular reports
Court record	Perinçek confirms a protected debate; Ottoman trials show state responsibility	Perinçek makes no genocide finding; Malta release shows insufficient evidence	Full judgment text; British law officers' records
Treaties	Lausanne does not erase history; Armenia not a party	Alexandropol, Moscow, Kars and Lausanne fix the frontier	Texts of the four instruments and the 2009 Protocols
Way forward	Recognition as a basis for reconciliation	Joint Historical Commission and normalization without preconditions	2005 proposal; Kılıç–Rubinyan talks since 2022

Readers should check whether a source cites a primary document, a judgment or a political text, and whether it distinguishes a legislative resolution from a judicial ruling. Our Editorial Principles and Primary Source Standards explain how we apply this test, and our Reader FAQ on sources and method answers related questions.

Key Terms & Related Guides

• Events of 1915. Türkiye's official term for the wartime relocation of Ottoman Armenians and the associated violence and losses. Armenia and recognizing states use 'Armenian genocide'.
• Sevk ve İskân Kanunu. The Relocation and Resettlement Law of 27 May 1915, published in the Takvim-i Vekayi on 1 June 1915.
• Takvim-i Vekayi. The Ottoman official gazette in which laws and decrees were published.
• Dolus specialis. The specific intent to destroy a protected group as such, which the 1948 Convention requires.
• Hunchak and Dashnak. The revolutionary committees founded in 1887 and 1890 respectively.
• ASALA and JCAG-ARA. Armed organizations that attacked Turkish diplomats between 1973 and 1984; both are regarded as terrorist organizations by Türkiye.
• Joint Historical Commission. The 2005 Turkish proposal for an independent panel of historians from Türkiye, Armenia and third countries.
• Lausanne Declaration of Amnesty. A text accompanying the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne covering offences committed between 1914 and 1922.

Related reading:

• Fact Check: parliaments versus courts on the 1915 recognition claim
• States in Perspective: how different capitals read the same dispute
• Editorial Principles and Primary Source Standards
• About States in Perspective: mission, transparency and editorial team
• Region Scope on archives, legal framework and normalization

Perspective Note

States in Perspective presents Türkiye's official legal and strategic position alongside documented counter-arguments, so readers can see how Ankara frames each issue. Claims are attributed to primary sources such as treaties, UN documents, Ottoman and Turkish archives, and official statements. This guide is published by the States in Perspective Editorial Team.