Presentation, by Chibli Mallat
At 4:20 am, on March 1, 2004, the Iraqi Governing Council agreed unanimously on
what was being discussed as the "Administrative Law for the Interim Period",
described since as "the interim Constitution".
This website section, which will be autonomous as soon as the discussion gets enriched with historical and current material for the debate, features some of the press coverage surrounding the agreement, and offers background texts to enrich the ongoing discussion for the future of Iraqi democracy.
Suggestions and contributions are welcome, please write to:
The debate on the Iraqi Constitution
CHRONOLOGY
-
End June, Early July 2004- Debate on new government and on UN SCR 1546
- What to do in Iraq, Reason int'v
- To Hoshyar Zebari, on UN SCR
- La résignation d'Adnan Pachachi
- Again, deploy human rights
monitors
- March 11, 2004,
Text of
reservations by Shi'i IGC members released
- March 8, 2004, Interim
Constitution approved (English - Arabic), press reports
- March 5, 2004, Ratification problems: Shi‘i members of the Iraqi
Governing Council request change key dispositions,
NYTimes, Hayat (March 6)
- March 2, 2004, Massive bomb killings against Ashura mourners
- March 1, 2004, Interim constitution announced, press reports
- March 1, 2004, Launch of Constitution for Iraq, Materials for the debate:
Presentation
Early
Commentaries on the
Interim constitution
Chibli Mallat,
East Meets West, at
Least on Paper, NYTimes
Chibli Mallat,
Possible deadlocks, Nahar, (updated version)
Joseph Samaha,
a political reading,
as-Safir
Background material
Relevant Iraqi documents
- The 15
November 2003 Agreement
- The Nasiriyya (15 April 2003) and Baghdad (28 April 2003)
resolutions
- The March 1974 Agreement on the Autonomy of the Kurdish
region
- Interim Constitution
(1970), English
- The Constitution of 1925,
English
- US constitution, in
Arabic. This is a translation by Suleyman Faidi, dated 1922, useful for
the rendering of constitutional concepts in the Arabic of the time
(underlined or circled here). Faidi was a leading Sunni lawyer from Basra,
author of numerous books and studies, including informative Memoirs on the
liberal Iraqi age..
Relevant UN Resolutions
- SCR 1546, English
- SCR 1511,
Arabic, English
- SCR 1502,
Arabic, English
- SCR 1483,
Arabic, English