Recent South Caucasus Court Cases

Abstract

This baseline installment covers the three states of the South Caucasus - Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan - weighted to compulsory acquisition; all three statutory frameworks were read against primary sources. Georgia's Law No 2349 of 1999 measures compensation by market value, makes the expropriator's expert valuation a floor, fixes no valuation date and leaves the final evaluation to the court; Supreme Court decisions of 2025-26 apply it, among them as-1172-2024 (20 February 2026), and in two the owner's valuer prevailed. Armenia's Law HO-185-N deems market value plus fifteen percent equivalent compensation; Law HO-28-N, in force 17 February 2026, adds a second, conditional fifteen percent and the owner's right to nominate the valuer. Azerbaijan's Law No 987-IIIQ of 2010 applies the higher of market price - the average of the three highest notarized comparables before the inventory date - and restoration price; no domestic valuation case law is published, but European Court of Human Rights judgments on Baku demolitions criticize unreasoned domestic figures and set aside applicants' reports not dated at the deprivation. Georgia's Constitutional Court (ruling 1/2/1901, 26 March 2026) again struck an auction starting price of five percent of market value, and Armenia's Law HO-286-N makes registration a condition of a valuation report from 11 July 2027. The North Caucasus falls under Russia and is not surveyed.