Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T10:49:49.813Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Occupied Iraq: Imperial Convergences?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 June 2018

KERRY RITTICH Open the ORCID record for KERRY RITTICH [Opens in a new window]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The occupation of Iraq in 2003 involved a wide-ranging set of interventions in the domestic legal, political and economic structures of the state, interventions that provoked a debate about whether the law of occupation should recognize a category of ‘transformative’ occupation.

While the occupation itself has often been decried as an imperial venture, its administration involved a diffusion of power among international institutions as well as ratification by the Security Council through Resolution 1483. This article pursues the intuition that the transformation of norms and practices elsewhere in the international order underwrote the idea that it was the law of occupation that was problematic, at the same time facilitating the transmutation and preservation of practices that might be identified as imperial. Two developments are key: The first is the pervasive normalization of intervention in the domestic policy and legal orders of states; the second is the dissemination of norms about domestic regulation within the international order, those that touch on economic governance in particular. The orders of the occupying were infused in both form and substance with ideas of ‘normal governance’ traceable to myriad projects, policies and practices of other international institutions: development agencies, financial institutions, trade organizations. Iraq then might be a revealing case with which to consider the character and locations of contemporary imperialism, as well as the role of international law and international institutions in its unfolding.

Keywords

economic reformgovernanceimperialisminternational institutionslaw of occupation
Type
INTERNATIONAL LEGAL THEORY: Symposium on ‘Imperial Locations’
Information
Leiden Journal of International Law , Volume 31 , Issue 3 , September 2018 , pp. 479 - 508
Copyright
Copyright © Foundation of the Leiden Journal of International Law 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

Professor of Law, Women and Gender Studies, and Public Policy and Governance, University of Toronto [[email protected]]. Deep thanks to the other contributors to this volume, to two anonymous reviewers, and to Yishai Blank, Karen Engle, Guenter Frankenberg, Aeyal Gross, Vasuki Nesiah, Amr Shalakany, Chantal Thomas, Robert Wai, Lucie White, Mikhael Xifaras and the law faculties at Hong Kong University and Tel Aviv University for their comments, insights and assistance.

References

1 1907 Convention IV Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land (the ‘Hague Convention’), The Hague, UKTS 9 (1910), available at ihl-databases.icrc.org/applic/ihl/ihl.nsf/385ec082b509e76c41256739003e636d/1d1726425f6955aec125641e0038bfd6?OpenDocument.

2 Roberts, A., ‘Transformative Military Occupation: Applying the Laws of War and Human Rights’, (2006) 100 AJIL 580Google Scholar; Ratner, S., ‘Foreign Occupation and International Territorial Administration: The Challenges of Convergence’, (2005) 16 EJIL 695CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 See R. Wilde, International Territorial Administration (2008); C. Stahn, The Law and Practice of International Territorial Administration (2008); G.H. Fox, Humanitarian Occupation (2008).

4 The locus classicus on this is Wilde, ibid.

5 See Ratner, supra note 2; See Wilde, supra note 3.

6 See Wilde, ibid., Ch. 8.

7 Schmitt, M.N., ‘Iraq (2003 onwards)’, in Wilmshurst, E. (ed.), International Law and the Classification of Conflicts (2012), 356 at 356Google Scholar.

8 See Roberts, supra note 2.

9 See, for example, O. Korhonen, J. Gras and K. Kreutz, International Post-Conflict Situations: New Challenges for Cooperative Governance (2006). See also Wilde, supra note 3.

10 For a discussion of the genesis of these reforms in the context of transition, see K. Rittich, Recharacterizing Restructuring: Law, Gender and Market Reform (2002); see also Gathii, J., ‘Retelling Good Governance Narratives on Africa's Economic and Political Predicaments: Continuities and Discontinuities in Legal Outcomes Between Markets and States’, (2000) 45 Villanova Law Rev. 971Google Scholar.

11 See I. Shihata, The World Bank in a Changing World: Selected Essays and Lectures (1991). For a discussion of the role of the rule of law in organizing and legitimating these interventions see S. Humphreys, Theatre of the Rule of Law: Transnational Legal Intervention in Theory and Practice (2010).

12 Williamson, J., ‘Democracy and the Washington Consensus’, (1993) 21 World Development 1329CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 Stiglitz, J.E., ‘Is There a Post Washington Consensus Consensus?’, in Serra, N. and Stiglitz, J.E. (eds.), The Washington Consensus Reconsidered: Towards a New Global Governance (2008), 41CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 See Korhonen, Gras and Kreutz, supra note 9.

15 See also Wilde, supra note 3, at 203–4.

16 For a discussion of parallel consciousness informing the field of law and development see Rittich, K., ‘Theorizing International Law and Development’, in Orford, A. and Hoffman, F. (eds.), Oxford Handbook of the Theory of International Law (2016), 802Google Scholar.

17 See Wilde, supra note 3; Bhuta, N., ‘Democratization, State-Building and Politics as Technology’, in Bowden, B., Charlesworth, H. and Farrall, J. (eds.), The Role of International Law in Rebuilding Societies After Conflict: Great Expectations (2009), 38CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rittich, K., ‘Functionalism and Formalism: Their Latest Incarnations in Contemporary Development and Governance Debates’, (2005) 55 University of Toronto Law Journal 853CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 Lang, A., ‘Governing “As If”: Global Subsidies Regulation and the Benchmark Problem’, (2014) 76 Current Legal Problems 135CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

19 See Frankenberg, G., ‘Constitutional transfer: The IKEA theory revisited’, (2010) 8 I·CON 563–79Google Scholar.

20 Franck, T.M., ‘The Emerging Right to Democratic Governance’, (1992) 86 AJIL 46CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

21 See Wilde, supra note 3; Bhuta, supra note 17. See also Marks, S., ‘What Has Become of the Emerging Right to Democratic Governance?’, (2011) 22 EJIL 507CrossRefGoogle Scholar; G. Simpson, Great Powers and Outlaw States: Unequal Sovereigns in the International Legal Order (2004).

22 United Kingdom, Report of a Committee of Privy Counsellors, The Report of the Iraq Inquiry (‘The Chilcot Report’), 6 July 2016, available at www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/the-report/.

23 Classic discussions include: H. Grotius, in R. Tuck (ed.), The Rights of War and Peace, Book I (2005); Anghie, A., ‘Francisco Vitoria and the Colonial Origins of International Law’, (1996) 5 Social and Legal Studies 321CrossRefGoogle Scholar; A. Anghie, Imperialism, Sovereignty and the Making of International Law (2005).

24 See Anghie, A., ‘The War on Terror and Iraq in Historical Perspective’, (2005) 43 Osgoode Hall L. J. 45Google Scholar; R. Chandrasekaran, Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone (2006); Natarajan, U., ‘Creating and Recreating Iraq: Legacies of the Mandate System in Contemporary Understandings of Third World Sovereignty’, (2011) 24 LJIL 799CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

25 See Bhuta, N., ‘The Antinomies of Transformative Occupation’, (2005) 16 EJIL 721CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

26 See C. Peevers, The Politics of Justifying Force: The Suez Crisis, the Iraq War, and International Law (2013).

27 D. Kennedy, Of Law and War (2004).

28 See E. Benvenisti, The International Law of Occupation (1993); Fox, G.H., ‘The Occupation of Iraq’, (2005) 36 Georgetown Journal of Int'l Law 195Google Scholar; Sheffer, D.J., ‘Beyond Occupation Law, (2003) 97 AJIL 842CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sassoli, M., ‘Legislation and Maintenance of Public Order and Civil Life by Occupying Powers’, (2005) 16 EJIL 661CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ben-Naftali, O., Gross, A.M. and Michaeli, K., ‘Illegal Occupation: Framing the Occupied Palestinian Territory’, (2005) 24 Berkeley Journal of Int'l Law 101Google Scholar; See Stahn, supra note 3.

29 Convention IV Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land, supra note 1, Art. 43.

30 1949 Geneva Convention IV Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, 75 UNTS (1950) 287, available at ihl-databases.icrc.org/applic/ihl/ihl.nsf/Treaty.xsp?documentId=AE2D398352C5B028C12563CD002D6B5C&action=openDocument.

31 See Benvenisti, supra note 28.

32 Ibid.

33 See Ben-Naftali, Gross and Michaeli, supra note 28.

34 See Sheffer, supra note 28; Fox, supra note 28.

35 Yoo, J., ‘Iraqi Reconstruction and the Law of Occupation’, (2004–2005) 11 U.C. Davis J. Int'l L. and Pol'y 7Google Scholar.

36 See Sassoli, supra note 28; Fox, supra note 28.

37 See Ratner, supra note 2.

38 See Koh, H., ‘Forward: On American Exceptionalism’, (2003) 55 Stanford Law Review 1479Google Scholar. For a defence, see, J. Goldsmith and E. Posner, The Limits of International Law (2005).

39 See Anghie, supra note 24; Wilde, supra note 3; J. Gathii, War, Commerce and International Law (2010).

40 See Anghie, A., ‘Colonialism and the Birth of International Institutions: Sovereignty, Economy, and the Mandate System of the League of Nations’, (2002) 34 NYU J. of Int'l Law and Politics 513Google Scholar; Wilde, supra note 3, at 289–90; Bhuta, supra note 17.

41 See Anghie, supra note 40, at 513.

42 Ibid, at 622.

43 See ‘The Euro Plus Pact’, 11 March 2011, available at ec.europa.eu/economy_finance/economic_governance/index_en.htm.

44 Koskenniemi, M., ‘The Fate of International Law: Between Technique and Politics’, (2007) 70 Modern Law Review 1CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

45 Alvarez, J., ‘Hegemonic International Law Revisited’, (2003) 97 AJIL 873CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

46 Orford, A., Book Review Article: ‘International Territorial Administration and the Management of Decolonization’, (2010) 59 Int'l Comp. L.Q. 227CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 232, 234; I.F.I. Shihata, ‘The World Bank and “Governance” Issues in its Borrowing Members’, in The World Bank in A Changing World: Selected Essays (1991).

47 R. Teitel, Humanity's Law (2011).

48 S. Chesterman, You, the People: The United Nations, Transitional Administrations, and State Building (2004), 49.

49 See Orford, supra note 46, at 232.

50 Kennedy, D., ‘When Renewal Repeats: Thinking Against the Box’, (2000) 32 New York J. of Int'l L. and Politics 335Google Scholar.

51 See Kennedy, supra note 27.

52 See Simpson, supra note 21.

53 See W. Grewe, The Epochs of International Law (2000); M. Mazower, Governing the World (2012).

54 See Grewe, supra note 53, at 576.

55 See Simpson, supra note 21.

56 See Alvarez, supra note 45, at 886.

57 UN Security Council Resolution 678 (1990), available at worldlii.org/int/other/UNSC/1990/32.pdf.

58 See Grewe, supra note 53, at 592; Kennedy, D., ‘The Three Globalizations of Legal Thought’, in Trubek, D. and Santos, A. (eds.), The New Law and Economic Development (2006)Google Scholar.

59 For a discussion see D. Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of Classical Legal Thought (2006).

60 See also Benvenisti, supra note 28, at 209–10.

61 See also Anghie, supra note 40.

62 M. Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the College de France, 1978-79 (2008).

63 M. Foucault, Sovereignty, Territory, Population: Lectures at the College de France, 1977-78 (2007).

64 M. Foucault, The History of Sexuality: An Introduction, Vol. I (1980), 94–5.

65 See B. Golder and P. Fitzpatrick, Foucault's Law (2009); T. Aalberts and B. Golder, ‘On the Uses of Foucault for International Law’, (2012) 25 Leiden Journal of International Law 603; B. Golder, Foucault and the Politics of Rights (2015).

66 See Rittich, supra note 10, Ch. 2.

67 J. Halley, Split Decisions: How and Why to Take a Break from Feminism (2006), at 278–9.

68 See Lang, supra note 18, at 135.

69 See also Fox, supra note 3, at 260.

70 UN Security Council Resolution 1483, 22 May 2003, UN Doc. S/RES/1483 (2003), available at http://unscr.com/en/resolutions/1483.

71 The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, September 2002, available at www.state.gov/documents/organization/63562.pdf.

72 S. Talmon, The Occupation of Iraq, vol. II, The official Documents of the Coalition Provisional Authority and the Iraqi Governing Council (2013).

73 UN Security Council Resolution 1483, supra note 70, Preamble.

74 Ibid., Art. 4.

75 Ibid., Art. 8 (d) and (e).

76 Ibid., Art. 20.

77 Ibid., Art. 22.

78 Ibid., Art. 8 (i).

79 UN Security Council, Report of the Secretary General pursuant to paragraph 24 of Security Council Resolution 1483 (2003), UN Doc. S/2003/715, 17 July 2003, available at documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N03/430/63/PDF/N0343063.pdf?OpenElement, paras. 88–91.

80 See The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, supra note 71.

81 For a discussion see Anghie, A., ‘On Critique and the Other’, in Orford, A. (ed.), International Law and its Others (2006), 389CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Anghie, supra note 24.

82 National Security Strategy, supra note 71, Ch. 6.

83 Ibid.

84 M. Klare, Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Dependency on Imported Petroleum (2004); S. Hersh, Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib (2004); J. Risen, Pay Any Price: Greed, Power and Endless War (2014).

85 See Mayer, J., ‘Contract Sport: Letter from Washington’, New Yorker 16 & 23 February 2004, at 80Google Scholar.

86 L. McQuaig, It's the Crude, Dude: War, Big Oil, and the Fight for the Planet (2005).

87 See Hersh, supra note 84; see Klare, supra note 84.

88 See A. Hirschman, Rival Views of Market Societies and Other Recent Essays (1986); A. Hirschman, The Passions and the Interests (1977).

89 The White House, ‘Initial Benchmark Assessment Report’, 12 July 2007, available at georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2007/07/20070712.html.

90 OXFAM, ‘Rising to the Humanitarian Challenge in Iraq’, Briefing Paper, July 2007, available at www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/Rising%20to%20the%20humanitarian%20challenge%20in%20Iraq.pdf.

91 Order 1 and all subsequent CPA orders referenced can be found in Talmon, supra note 72.

92 N. Rosen, ‘Anatomy of a Civil War: Iraq's Descent into Chaos’, Boston Review, November/December 2006, available at bostonreview.net/archives/BR31.6/rosen.php.

93 Gerth, J. and Natta, D. Van Jr., ‘Halliburton Contracts in Iraq: The Struggle to Manage Costs’, The New York Times, 29 December 2003Google Scholar.

94 See Mayer, supra note 85.

95 See N. Klein, ‘Baghdad Year Zero’, Harper's, September 2004, 43.

96 See Hersh, supra note 84.

97 Wright, R., ‘Constitution Sparks Debate on Viability’, Washington Post, 25 August 2005Google Scholar.

98 See Gerard, L.W., ‘United Steelworkers letter to Congress opposing privatization of the Iraqi oil industry, July 31, 2007’, in Ehrenberg, J. et al. (eds.), The Iraq Papers (2010), 392Google Scholar.

99 See Feldman, N., ‘Imposed Constitutionalism’, (2004–2005) 37 Conn. Law Rev. 857Google Scholar.

100 See J. Stiglitz, Globalization and Its Discontents (2002); Stiglitz, supra note 13.

101 Steele, J., ‘Good News from Baghdad at Last: the oil law has stalled’, The Guardian, 3 August 2007Google Scholar.

102 I. Shihata, ‘Law, Development and the Role of the World Bank’, Complementary Reform: Essays on Legal, Judicial and Other Institutional Reforms Supported by the World Bank (1997); See also Stiglitz, supra note 100; Rittich, supra note 10.

103 IMF, World Economic Outlook: Advancing Structural Reforms (2004), Chapter III, ‘Fostering Structural Reforms in Industrial Countries’, available at www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2004/01/pdf/chapter3.pdf.

104 See D. Kennedy, A World of Struggle (2016); A. Lang, World Trade Law After Neoliberalism (2011).

105 Stiglitz, supra note 100; Rittich, supra note 10.

106 See Stiglitz, supra note 13.

107 Rittich, K., ‘Rights, Risk and Reward: Governance Norms in the International Order and the Problem of Precarious Work’, in Fudge, J. and Owens, R. (eds.), Precarious Work, Women, and the New Economy: The Challenge to Legal Norms (2006), 31Google Scholar.

108 Whyte, D., ‘The Crimes of Neo-Liberal Rule in Occupied Iraq’, (2007) 47 British J. of Criminology 1CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

109 See Fox, supra note 3, Ch. 8.

110 See Anghie, supra note 24.

111 See Gathii, J., ‘Foreign and Other Economic Rights upon Conquest and Under Occupation: Iraq in Comparative and Historical Context’, (2004) 25 U. Penn. J. of Int'l Econ. Law 491Google Scholar; Gathii, supra note 39.

112 Rittich, K., ‘Second Generation Reforms and the Incorporation of the Social’, in Trubek, D. and Santos, A. (eds.), The New Law and Economic Development: A Critical Appraisal (2006), 203CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

113 World Bank, Sub-Saharan Africa: From Crisis to Sustainable Growth (1989).

114 Wold Bank, World Development Report: From Plan to Market (2006).

115 Agreement to Establish the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development, Art. 1, available at www.ebrd.com/news/publications/institutional-documents/basic-documents-of-the-ebrd.html.

116 See Shihata, supra note 46; see also Rittich, supra note 10, Ch. 2.

117 For a classic discussion, see J. Sachs, Poland's Jump to the Market Economy (1993).

118 See Wilde, supra note 3, Ch. 6.

119 Convention IV Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land, supra note 1.

120 O. Korhonen and J. Gras, International Governance in Post-Conflict Situations (2001), 29.

121 See Perritt, H. Jr., ‘Economic Sustainability and Final Status for Kosovo’, (2004) 25 U. Penn. J. Int'l Ec. L 259Google Scholar.

122 ILO, Promoting good governance in the labour market by strengthening tripartism and social dialogue, 31 January 2004, available at www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---asia/---ro-bangkok/---ilo-jakarta/documents/publication/wcms_125297.pdf.

123 UN Human Rights Council, ‘Good Governance and Human Rights: Overview’, available at www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Development/GoodGovernance/Pages/GoodGovernanceIndex.aspx.

124 See IMF, supra note 103.

125 Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, available at www.international.gc.ca/trade-commerce/trade-agreements-accords-commerciaux/agr-acc/cptpp-ptpgp/index.aspx?lang=eng, Art. 25.

126 K. Davis et al., Governance by Indicators: Global Power through Quantification and Rankings (2012); Rittich, K., ‘Governing by Measuring: The Millenium Development Goals in Global Governance’, in Ruiz-Fabri, H., Wolfrum, R. and Gogolin, J. (eds.), Select Proceedings of the European Society of International Law, Vol. 2, 2008 (2010), at 463Google Scholar; World Bank, Doing Business, various years, available at www.doingbusiness.org/.

127 For a discussion in the context of law and development, see Rittich, supra note 16, at 820.

128 World Bank, supra note 126.

129 See Alvarez, supra note 45, at 885.

130 See Benvenisti, supra note 28, at 91–2.

131 See Ratner, supra note 2.

132 See Benvenisti, supra note 28.

133 See Roberts, supra note 2.

134 Ratner, supra note 2; Sheffer, supra note 28.

135 Roberts, supra note 2, at 601.

136 See Sheffer, supra note 28, at 851.

137 See Ratner, supra note 2.

138 See Schmitt, supra note 7, at 384, 385.

139 On the assumption of benevolent intervention, see also A. Orford, Reading Humanitarian Intervention: Human Rights and the Use of Force in International Law (2009).

140 See R. Fisk, The Great War for Civilization (2004).

141 See P. Cockburn, The Occupation: War and Resistance in Iraq (2007).

142 See Roberts, supra note 2.

143 See Ratner, supra note 2.

144 Gross, A., ‘Human Proportions: Are Human Rights the Emperor's New Clothes of the International Law of Occupation?’, (2007) 18 EJIL 1CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

145 See Koh, supra note 38.

146 See Sassoli, supra note 28; Roberts, supra note 2, at 622.

147 See Benvenisti, supra note 28.

148 See Sassoli, supra note 28.

149 See, for example, Fox, supra note 3, at 268–70.

150 A. Sen, Development as Freedom (1999).

151 See Alston, P. and Robinson, M. (eds.), Human Rights and Development: Towards Mutual Reinforcement (2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

152 See Rittich, supra note 112.

153 See UNDP, Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor (2008).

154 U. Baxi, The Future of Human Rights (2002).

155 Koskenniemi, M., ‘International Law and the Emergence of Mercantile Capitalism: Grotius to Smith’, in Dupuy, P.-M. and Chetail, V. (eds.), The Roots of International Law (2013), at 1Google Scholar.

156 F. Lugard, The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa (1922).

157 Hague Convention, supra note 1, Art. 46.

158 A. Greenspan, The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World (2007).

159 See Barlett, D.L. and Steele, J.B., ‘Billions Over Baghdad’, 2007 (October) Vanity FairGoogle Scholar.

160 On the paradoxes of transformative occupation, see also Bhuta, supra note 25.

161 See Koskenniemi, M., ‘The Lady Doth Protest Too Much: Kosovo, and the Turn to Ethics in International Law’, (2002) 65 Modern Law Review 159CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Chimni, B.S., ‘International Institutions Today: An Imperial Global State in the Making’, (2004) 15 EJIL 1CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

162 See Roberts, supra note 2.

163 See Schmitt, supra note 7.

164 A. Gross, The Writing on the Wall: Rethinking the International Law of Occupation (2017).

165 U. Mehta, Liberalism and Empire: A Study in 19th Century British Liberal Thought (1999).

166 See Lugard, supra note 156; Craven, M., ‘Between Law and History: The Berlin Conference of 1884–85 and the Logic of Free Trade’, (2015) 3 London Rev. Int'l Law 31CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

167 See Wilde, supra note 3, at 320.

168 See Chimni, supra note 161.