همر · What the orders rested on

What did the CPA’s orders rest on?

122 of the CPA’s 126 legal texts draw their authority from Security Council resolutions. Existing Iraqi law is mentioned in only 40, often in order to suspend it: 37 texts contain a clause suspending or overriding Iraqi law. It is the economic orders that invoke “international standards”, the WTO and the IMF.

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Established

Authority from New York: 122 of 126 texts cite Security Council resolutions (1483, 1511, 1546), usually in the preamble, as the source of the Administrator’s authority.

REG-001 ORD-001 ORD-002

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Established

Iraqi law is named in order to be suspended: 24 of the 40 texts that name an existing Iraqi law also contain a clause suspending or overriding it.

ORD-002 ORD-007 ORD-018 ORD-019 ORD-023

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Established

The economy’s reference point is external: economic orders invoke “international standards” in 11 texts, the IMF and World Bank in 4, and the WTO in 4 (trademarks, patents, copyright and public contracts).

ORD-080 ORD-081 ORD-083 ORD-087

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Established

Human-rights and war conventions are named in only 9 texts, mostly on justice, detention and media.

ORD-007 ORD-019 ORD-041 ORD-048 ORD-060

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Open question

Where was the wording of the economic orders taken from? Invoking “international standards” does not say which foreign law served as a model. The answer needs comparison with laws outside the archive.

What did the CPA’s orders rest on?

The Security Council in almost every text, Iraqi law in a third

Each theme its own reference point

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