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77 U. Cin. L. Rev. 1555 (2008-2009)
The Status of Kirkuk under Article 140 of the Iraqi Constitution: The Need for Adjudication by the Iraqi Supreme Court as Part of an Integrated Solution

handle is hein.journals/ucinlr77 and id is 1563 raw text is: THE STATUS OF KIRKUK UNDER ARTICLE 140 OF THE IRAQI CONSTITUTION: THE NEED FOR ADJUDICATION BY THE IRAQI SUPREME COURT AS PART OF AN INTEGRATED SOLUTION Cynthia A. Bolden* & Jerrod Fussnecker** AN INTRODUCTION TO THE KIRKUK PROBLEM The fledgling Iraqi government faces a potentially devastating setback as its political leaders struggle to implement Iraq's constitutional mandates while the U.S. prepares to withdraw its troops from Iraq by 2011.1 The failure of the Iraqi government to implement a constitutionally required referendum2 to determine whether the governorate of Kirkuk will join Iraq's Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has already slowed Iraqi efforts to adopt a hydrocarbons law and to revise the Iraq constitution.3 The continued failure to implement the Kirkuk referendum presents the possibility of an uprising by the Kurdish population and a potentially violent dispute among the many ethnic groups who reside in Kirkuk. The Kurds are a non-Arab minority in Iraq who have struggled for independence from the time of Iraq's formation after World War I.4 However, their efforts have been brutally repressed by Iraq's ruling powers for decades. Five million Kurds currently live in northern Iraq5 and form up to 25% of the Iraqi population.6 The Kurds lay claim to an area historically known as Kurdistan which they claim includes parts of five Iraqi governorates stretching from Iraq's Syrian border in the northwest to its Iranian border east of Baghdad.7 The Iraqi Constitution, adopted in 2005, created a three-tiered federal government consisting of * Contributing Member, 2008-2009 University of Cincinnati Law Review. ** Contributing Member, 2008-2009 University of Cincinnati Law Review. 1. Ramzy Mardini, Rising Arab-Kurdish Tensions over Kirkuk Will Complicate US. Withdrawalfrom Iraq, TERRORISM FOCUS, Feb. 25, 2009, at 4, available at http://www.jamestown.org/u ploads/media/tf 006 006 02.pdf. 2. IRAQI CONST. art. 140. 3. See INT'L CRISIS GROUP, OIL FOR SOIL: TOWARD A GRAND BARGAIN ON IRAQ AND THE KURDS 1 (2008), available at http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=5750. 4. KERIM YILDIZ, THE KURDS IN IRAQ 10 (2007). 5. 60 Minutes (CBS television broadcast Feb. 18, 2007). 6. YILDIZ, supra note 4, at 9. 7. INT'L CRISIS GROUP, supra note 3, at 1. 1555

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