ABSTRACT
Prior to commenting on Iraqi law with respect to legal control over oil and gas in the disputed Kurdish territories and its relationship to the notion of bottom-up development of international law, a somewhat detailed summary of that law would have to include several observations. For starters, the most significant provisions of Iraqi law regarding the disputed territories’ oil and gas reserves are to be found in the Iraqi Constitution’s articles 110–112, 114–115, and 140 and 143, with article 121 being of somewhat lesser import. With respect to various provisions of the central government’s proposed oil and gas framework law, language from the 2008 Provincial Elections Law, as well as the KRG’s draft regional Constitution and its 2007 Oil and Gas Law (No. 22), the best that can be said is that they, along with certain provisions from the KRG’s own Model PSC, and extant publicly released PSCs with specific international oil companies, provide insight into the respective readings of the fundamental constitutional standards. Additionally, articles 140 and 143 of the Iraqi Constitution establish some general legal principles that, in connection with disputed territories, interact with the Constitution’s articles 110–112 and 114–115, and thus raise the possibility of significantly affecting allocation of authority over oil and gas.
