Iraq/Kurdistan: New Twist in Legal Tussle Over Oil Between Kurds and Iraq

Sep 16, 2014 | Anthony McAuley, The National
View Original

The international legal tussle between the Iraqi central government and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) over ownership of oil produced in the Kurdish north has taken a new twist, even as the new central government regime is also looking to negotiate a compromise back home.

In the latest move in a case that has played out in Texas since late July, the KRG’s lawyers sought to reject a new legal tactic by the Iraq government’s representatives to have the oil seized as “stolen property”. Last month, Judge Gray Miller in the US district court in Texas ruled that the court did not have jurisdiction under maritime law as it involved a dispute over sovereignty which could only be decided by Iraq and the Kurdish people.