Abstract/Summary

Use of force is one of the principles of international law that has been banned by the UN Charter and modern constitutions. However, since the enforcement of the UN Charter, self-defense has become the preferred excuse for states to justify their use of force. Applying self-defense, however, requires some conditions. Immediacy is one of the important conditions of self-defense. This is defined as the timeframe between armed attacks and reaction to it. This situation requires self-defense immediately after the armed conflict or during a reasonable timeframe since its occurance. In this respect, emerging Karabakh Conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the 1990s is important. In this article, by comparing two different approaches (strict and board interpretation) of the temporal link between the measures of self-defense and the armed attacks (immediacy), the temporal link between the self-defense countermeasures of Azerbaijan and attacks by Armenia in Karabakh Conflict will be examined.