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Limits and Limitations of Power: The Continued Relevance of Occupation Law
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 March 2019
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Lawyers are trained to apply rules to certain situations, and thus determining whether a particular behaviour is norm-conformant or not. It is generally assumed that rules as such exist and are applicable in a given situation. While there might be a debate about identifying the appropriate normative set among competing legal frameworks, it is generally taken as a given that binding rules exist and that they are habitually complied with. With regard to international relations, this basic ontological outlook contrast somewhat with the analytical conceptions taken by other disciplines which rely on other explanatory variables – notably power and interest – to account for the behavioural patterns of states.
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References
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Resolution 1483, para. 12 required the establishment of an International Advisory and Monitoring Board (IAMB) to be composed of senior members of international developing finance institutions to oversee how the DFI was spent. In consultation with the CPA it appointed the Bahrain office of the international accounting firm KPMG to audit these expenses. The reports of both KPMG and the IAMB lamented the “resistance encountered from CPA staff” and stated “financial irregularities.” Furthermore, despite its repeated requests and assurances by the CPA to the IAMB that meters would be installed/repaired, this was never done during the tenure of the CPA, suggesting significant under-reporting of oil exports; the unaccounted revenue is estimated to be between 2-4 billion US$. 8.8 billion US$ passing through Iraq ministries during the CPA's tenure remain unaccounted for. 3 billion US$ in new contracts were handed out in the last weeks of the CPA, to be managed by the US embassy. See International Advisory and Monitoring Board, Development Fund for Iraq Audit, 2004, IAMB, available at: www.iamb.info/dfiaudit.htm; International Advisory and Monitoring Board, Appendix to the audit of the Development Fund for Iraq - Matters noted involving internal controls and other operations issues during the audit of the Fund for the period up to 31 December 2003, 2004, IAMB; International Advisory and Monitoring Board, KPMG's Audit Notes, 2004, IAMB, available at: www.iamb.info/auditrep/r052203a.pdf.Google Scholar
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Part of this wastage has been defended one the one hand by the need to kick-start the economy (“pour in billions of dollars. That is the only way to do it. It does not matter where it goes; we just need to get the economy moving. We could drop it from helicopters and it would probably do about as much good as most USAID programs”, Howard Wiarda in Lauth et al., Building the Institutions of the Nation, 33 GEORGIA JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL AND COMPARATIVE LAW (2004), 193.) The other justification has been to purchase security by paying off informants and warlords, a strategy used to good effect already in Afghanistan, see inter alia Jonathan Goodhand, From War Economy to Peace Economy? Reconstruction and State Building in Afghanistan, 58 JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS 155 (2004).Google Scholar
These are Iraqi funds that are being wasted and embezzled, not American ones. It has been criticised that during its operation, the CPA spent up to 20 billion US$ of Iraqi money through the DFI, while only about 400 million (!) US$ out of 18.4 billion US$ provided by Congress. This has been partly explained by the desire to reduce the burden on the American treasury, partly by avoiding oversight by the Congressional Accounting Office. See –, –, Rules and Cash Flew Out of the Window, LA TIMES; Ariana Eunjung Cha, In Iraq, the Job Opportunity of a Lifetime: Managing a $13 Billion Budget With No Experience, WASHINGTON POST, at A01; Wikipedia, Coalition Provisional Authority, 2006, available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coalition_Provisional_Authority.Google Scholar
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58 CPA/ORD/17 June 2004/17, though issued by the CPA in the last days of its operation was aimed at regulating the situation under the authority of the Iraqi Interim Government, i.e. after the handover of sovereignty.Google Scholar
59 CPA/ORD/17 June 2004/17 §1; this includes all official military and diplomatic personnel and also anyone working under any type of “contract” as defined in §1(13).Google Scholar
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