This is my last post on this site. It’s been a wonderful experience writing this week, I hope all of you found it as beneficial as I have. Thanks to the commenters, and of course to the editors of Opinio Juris for the opportunity. Anyone interested in the topics I have raised here is of course warmly...
Having spoken yesterday about some of the legal issues that divide Iraq, I thought I would focus today on the central legal matter that seems to unite them: the Civil Code. Those from civilian nations, or Louisiana, would have an easier time understanding this I think. However, I suppose if I had to analogize, within Iraq, reverence to the...
Hours before the execution of Saddam Hussein, there was a flurry of debate on both the Iraqi and the American sides concerning its legality. One of the primary American concerns was that the Iraqi law permitting executions clearly barred their being carried out on Islamic holidays, and the proposed execution was at least arguably (depending on when you start...
One of the stories I recount in Howling in Mesoptamia relates to an episode at the Suleymania University College of Law, concerning the arrival of USAID personnel, and their hired guns, military contractors from Blackwater, or Triple Canopy, or one of the other organizations hired to protect government personnel during their travels through the country. (I didn’t ask at...
First of all, my thanks are due to Professor Borgen, and to all of the editors of Opinio Juris, my favorite law blog (aside from my own, of course), for giving me the opportunity to discuss these vitally important issues in this extraordinary forum. Just one small correction to Professor Borgen’s very gracious introduction: the name of my book...
I have very little add to Professor Mallat’s enlightening comments. To the extent that I have a criticism, it is that he is perhaps too quick to dismiss his own work, upon which my scholarship is based. To be sure, Professor Mallat has focused on Sadr’s reactions to Marxism, and the role he played within the Najaf seminaries...
First, an obligatory and entirely deserved thanks to Chris Ripple and the editors of the Virginia Journal of International Law for giving me an opportunity to discuss my work on this blog, and to Chibli Mallat, the premier Sadr scholar of our time, for agreeing to comment thereon. Sadr’s work Iqtisaduna is so multifaceted and complex that any depiction of...
