ABSTRACT
The place to begin with any examination of the details of the relevant legal rules governing oil and gas deposits situated in the disputed Kurdish territories would be the provisions of the Iraqi Constitution. What is it that they provide regarding the distribution of constitutional authority when it comes to oil and gas? Do they call for the central government in Baghdad to have exclusive and plenary power over all oil and gas found within the borders of the Iraqi nation? Or do they envision such being shared with, or held completely by, the provinces or governorates within which such natural resources happen to be situated? While this topic has been explored much more extensively in other writings, 1 its importance in connection with the current project is inescapable. Any understanding of what the governing rules of law suggest regarding the resolution of the question of central versus KRG control over oil and gas in disputed territories must begin, though certainly not end, with the terms and provisions of the Iraqi Constitution. After all, as with constitutions generally, language may and, indeed, is found in the Constitution of Iraq that addresses both the matter of oil and gas, as well as the reach of executive and legislative competence of regional and central governmental authorities. It needs to be cautioned at the very outset of this chapter, however, that the focus is confined to what the 2005 Iraqi Constitution has to say about the distribution between the federal government and the sub-central units of authority over oil and gas, with no comment at all made at this juncture regarding what might be said on the matter of governing jurisdiction or authority over disputed territories—a matter affected by the Constitution’s article 140.
