Publication Date:
2013-11-22
Description:
Disagreements regarding the role to be played in oil and gas activity by Iraq’s Kurdish regional and provincial governing structures always exist as a potential complication to the important contribution which that nation is capable of making to world oil and gas supplies. The principal touchstone for such disagreements resides in the terms of provisions of Iraq’s 2005 Constitution. Of especial significance are the Constitution’s articles 112 and 115, as well as the relationship between that instrument’s article 143, and its pulling-in of articles 25(E) and 53(A) of the Constitution’s predecessor document, the so-called Transitional Administrative Law. Examining the complexities of and interplay between these articles reveals a legal architecture vesting the federal government in Baghdad with powers over certain oil and gas activities, leaving other activities to the regional and provincial governments, and still others in a situation where the accuracy of assertions of regional and provincial governmental power is less than clear. A further complication to this constitutional architecture is the fact that specific interpretations of relevant legal provisions even suggest the possibility of differences in legal regimes dependent upon whether exploitation is from resource deposits found in certain named Kurdish provinces as opposed to others.
Print ISSN:
1754-9957
Electronic ISSN:
1754-9965
Topics:
Energy, Environment Protection, Nuclear Power Engineering
,
Law
,
Economics
