Informed Comment Homepage

Thoughts on the Middle East, History and Religion

Header Right

Donate

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Google+
  • Email
  • RSS
  • Featured
  • US politics
  • Middle East
  • Environment
  • US Foreign Policy
  • Energy
  • Economy
  • Politics
  • About
  • Archives
  • Submissions

© 2023 Informed Comment

  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Uncategorized

Bremer Enacts New Investment Law For

Juan Cole 03/22/2004

Tweet
Share
Reddit
Email
0 Shares

Bremer enacts new Investment Law for Iraq

ash-Sharq al-Awsat: Civil administrator Paul Bremer signed Law Number 64 on Sunday, altering the Iraqi law of corporations (which had been enacted in 1997), changing the legal climate for commercial enterprises in Iraq. The new law removes obstacles that had prevented the formation of Iraqi commercial institutions, permits capital investments in current Iraqi companies, and in general creates the precondtions for a free economy. The new law complements Law 39, which concerns foreign investment in Iraq, which promised that foreign investors would be treated equally with Iraqi ones.

Reports suggest that the US will attempt to keep its 64 laws (there will be more), which have been enacted by fiat by a foreign occupier, in effect after the supposed transfer of sovereignty to some sort of Iraqi government on June 30. The elected Iraqi government which will come in in January 2005 would be in a position to alter these American-imposed laws, and I suspect that they will. And, just because the political atmosphere is so transitory and unsettled, it seems a little unlikely that many corporations will be able to take advantage of Mr. Bremer’s royal decree.

The Hague Regulations of 1907, governing military occupations, strictly forbid the occupying power from making significant changes in local law. But since the Iraq war and everything that followed it was illegal, I suppose that cow was out of the barn long ago. What is tragic is that apparently the return of sovereignty was delayed for a full year precisely so that laissez faire economics could be imposed on the country.

It is incredible that this sort of thing appears not to be reported in the Western press.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

About the Author

Juan Cole is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment. He is Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan He is author of, among many other books, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Follow him on Twitter at @jricole or the Informed Comment Facebook Page

Primary Sidebar

STAY INFORMED

Join our newsletter and have sharp analysis delivered to your inbox every day.

Twitter

Follow Juan Cole @jricole or Informed Comment @infcomment on Twitter

Facebook



Sign up for our newsletter

Informed Comment © 2023 All Rights Reserved

Posting....