The Constitutional Divide: Federation vs Kurdistan - Dissertation Example

This chapter will examine this argument through a combination of historical explorations of the subject divide supported by an investigation of legal arrangements on the matter. The argument will be strengthened further through the application of expert opinions gathered from a variety of academia, government, and technical sources operating within Iraq’s chequered framework for the sustainable development of oil and gas resources.

The previous chapter discussed international oil and gas contracts for exploration and exploitation in terms of their evolution and their application to Iraq in the modern context. Various factors affecting Iraq’s production policies and pricing policies were also examined followed by an evaluation of the triple bottom line and the petro curse. This allowed the development of challenges to the development of a unified legal arrangement in Iraq to utilize the oil and gas resources sustainably. This chapter will look into the split between the KRG and the federation and attempt to answer how this tends to affect the sustainable development of Iraq’s oil and gas resources. This chapter will explore the sustainable development of oil and gas resources in Iraq by examining the post-Saddam regime’s development of legal mistrust between the KRG and the center. Additionally, this chapter will look into the environmental aspects of sustainable development that have been pushed to the back by both the federation and the KRG to different extents.  The findings of the previous chapters will be linked to the discussion in this chapter to perform a comprehensive review of sustainable development of oil and gas resources and obstacles preventing it.

5-2 Split between KRG and Iraq’s Federal Government
5-2-1 The Ethnic Perspective

Iraq is a diverse land and its history shows that diversity comes at a price. The Colonial Era saw the use of force to bundle together the fragments of the Ottoman Empire including what is now modern-day Iraq. The might of the British Empire coupled with the relative lack of awareness of the locals allowed the Colonial masters to run the newly formed nation in great shape. From this time, Iraq has been a conglomeration of three distinct geographical regions that are rooted in ethnic as well as sectarian differences. In essence, Iraq’s society and geography are a combined function of its ethnic and sectarian diversity. To the north of Iraq are the separatist Kurds while central Iraq is home to Arab Sunnis. In contrast, the south is dominated by the Arab Shiite.

The Sunnis and the Shiites are differentiated based on their differing sects. The differences between both sects can be traced back to the earliest periods of the Islamic caliphates and the differences are considered irreconcilable in general. The Colonials chose to settle these differences not with long-term confidence-building but with administrative dexterity instead.