The Legal Regime of Mineral Resources Usage in Iraq and the Interests of Other States

Abstract

Nowadays there is no common law in Iraq which would fully, clearly and in details regulate relations in the sphere of mineral resources. But the corresponding Draft Iraq Oil and Gas Law (further – Draft Law) has been elaborated and it was transmitted to the Parliament of the State on the 15^th of February, 2007.
Repeating the norms of the Iraq Constitution, the Draft Law (art. 1) fixes the ownership right of the Iraq people to the energy resources. The Draft Law fixes the legal basis for the activity of the Iraq National Oil Company, established in 1964. The special attention is given to the regulation of the usage of mineral resources in Kurdistan, where (the oil-field Kirkuk) there are about 40 % of all oil resources of Iraq.
The “foreign element” is represented in this sphere, first of all, by the interests of the USA, which is reflected in the Strategic Plan of realizing the external policy of the USA in 2007-2012. The USA goes on interfering within the domestic affairs of Iraq, thus hoping to establish control over its richest oil reserves.
Iran and some other states also try to have their “finger in the oil pie”.
The Iran oil companies currently play a marked role in the economy of the South of Iraq.
As to the “Russian factor”, the specialists from the USSR have helped Iraq to carry out works at the number of oil objects from 1969. More than 40 Russian companies took part in the Program “Oil in Change to Foodstuffs” from 1996 to 2003. The war in Iraq in 2003 brought serious losses to the Russian companies that had business interests in Iraq. Among them nowadays “Lukoil” has the most significant strategic business plans in Iraq: by the year 2015 the company is going to concentrate more than 20 % of its oil output outside Russia. To a large extent these plans are connected with Iraq.
Russian companies have certain perspectives in Iraq due, first of all, to the experience of our specialists in Iraq, a considerable number of Russian equipment in the State and the local qualified workers, who have received education in Russia and are loyal to Russia.