4 Minority Rights in Iraq

This chapter seeks to examine and analyse the history and legislative provisions to protect minorities in Iraq. It situates Iraq’s minority communities (Kurds, Kaka’i, Shabak, Yezidi, Marsh Arabs, Christian, Armenian, Assyrian, Sabean Mandaeans, Baha’i, Black Iraqi, Circassians, Jews, Roma and Palestinian) within a socio-legal framework and includes a critique of the fragile unfolding constitution-building process and the conceptual frameworks upon which it has been built. The ‘liquid’ democracy that was meant to accompany the 2003 intervention has proved illusory for Iraqi communities inside and outside Iraq. There can be no other reading of the 2003 US and coalition forces’ intervention in Iraq other than that of a ‘transformative occupation’, which has operated outside the constraints dictated by the laws of occupation. The language of occupation may have been displaced, but the transformation of the political and demographic landscape in Iraq continues and this chapter examines the implications of this for the groups who continue to feel vulnerable within Iraq.