Disputes - international:
Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Russia ratified Caspian seabed delimitation treaties based on equidistance, while Iran continues to insist on a one-fifth slice of the lake; the dispute over the break-away Nagorno-Karabakh region and the Armenian military occupation of surrounding lands in Azerbaijan remains the primary focus of regional instability; residents have evacuated the former Soviet-era small ethnic enclaves in Armenia and Azerbaijan; local border forces struggle to control the illegal transit of goods and people across the porous, undemarcated Armenian, Azerbaijani, and Georgian borders; bilateral talks continue with Turkmenistan on dividing the seabed and contested oilfields in the middle of the Caspian
Refugees and internally displaced persons:
refugees (country of origin): 2,400 (Russia)
IDPs: 580,000-690,000 (conflict with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh) (2007)
Trafficking in persons:
current situation: Azerbaijan is a source, transit, and destination country for men, women, and children subjected to forced labor, and women and children subjected to sex trafficking; women and some children from Azerbaijan are trafficked to Turkey, the UAE, Russia, and Iran for the purpose of sexual exploitation; men and boys are trafficked to Russia and Moldova for the purpose of forced labor; Azerbaijan serves as a transit country for victims from Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan trafficked to Turkey and the UAE for sexual exploitation; Azerbaijan is also a destination country for men from Turkey and Afghanistan, and Chinese men and women for forced labor
tier rating: Tier 2 Watch List - Azerbaijan is on the Tier 2 Watch List for not fully complying with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; the Government of Azerbaijan has not made sufficient progress in investigating, prosecuting, or convicting labor trafficking offenses or in identifying victims of forced labor (2011)
Illicit drugs:
limited illicit cultivation of cannabis and opium poppy, mostly for CIS consumption; small government eradication program; transit point for Southwest Asian opiates bound for Russia and to a lesser extent the rest of Europe