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International Law and the British Mandate: The Debate About Self-determination in the Middle East After 1919’

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Abstract

This chapter deals with the issue of self-determination under international law by comparing the creation of Iraq out of remnant parts of the Ottoman Empire after the First World War with the concurrent case of Kurdistan. Iraq’s emergence to statehood was largely down to two distinctly separate and seemingly contradictory factors: firstly, the principle of self-determination promulgated by US President Woodrow Wilson in his Fourteen Points and embedded in the Covenant of the League of Nations, but also therealpolitik of the Sykes-Picot Agreement and the delineation of the Middle East after the First World War into British and French spheres of influence. Iraq’s creation came at a critical time in the development of international governance. The legal framework which had come into existence in the nineteenth century, an international society largely predicated on nation states, though with continuing empires, was formalised by the creation of the League of Nations and further emphasised an international society of states. However as will be seen here Iraq, an artificially constructed state of disparate ethnic communities came into being, but the same status was denied too the Kurds, an ethnically homogenous community.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    President Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points 8 January, 1918: accessed from Avalon Project, Yale University, Avalon Project—President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points (yale.edu) last accessed 21 October 2023.

  2. 2.

    See The Sykes-Picot Agreement: 1916 cited in The Avalon Project, Documents in Law History and Diplomacy,Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale University accessed 23 January 2024.

  3. 3.

    Public Record Office (hereafter P.R.O)., Foreign Office (hereafter F.O.) 141/581/3, Foreign Office Memo dated 2 April 1919.

  4. 4.

    P.R.O., ADM., 116/3806 Admiralty Commission Second Interim Report, 26 January 1914.

  5. 5.

    P.R.O., F.O., 371/2721, Charles Greenway to Foreign Office, 24 February 1916.

  6. 6.

    P.R.O., CAB 24/3, Slade memorandum, The political position in the Persian Gulf at the end of the war, 31 October 1916.

  7. 7.

    P.R.O., ADM 1/8537/240 and FO 368/2255 Slade memorandum, The petroleum situation in the British Empire, 29 July.

    1918.

  8. 8.

    P.R.O, F.O 141/581/3, Foreign Office Memorandum Respecting the Settlement of Turkey and the Arabian Peninsula, dated 2 April 1919.

  9. 9.

    Treaty of Alliance, Baghdad, 10 October 1922, ratification exchanged at Baghdad, 19 December 1924, 35 League of Nations Treaty Series 14.

  10. 10.

    P.R.O., F.O. 141/57/4, Foreign Office Memorandum Respecting The Settlement of Turkey and the Arabian Peninsula dated 10 April 1919.

  11. 11.

    Treaty Between His Britannic Majesty and His Majesty the King of Irak, signed at Baghdad, 10 October 1922, cited in Wright (1930: 595).

  12. 12.

    Treaty of Ankara (1926), commonly known as the Frontier Treaty of 1926 Treaty between the United Kingdom and Iraq and Turkey regarding the settlement of the frontier between Turkey and Iraq, together with notes exchanged. Signed, 5 June 1926.

  13. 13.

    Article 5, Treaty of Alliance Between His Majesty in Respect of the United Kingdom and His Majesty the King of Iraq. Signed at Baghdad, 30 June 1930.

  14. 14.

    P.R.O, Political Department, India Office, Note on Kurdistan, 14 December 1918, F.O 371/3386.

  15. 15.

    Treaty of Sèvres of 10 August 1920, United Kingdom Treaty Series No.11 (1920); Cmd. 964.

  16. 16.

    See Lausanne Conference on Near Eastern Affairs, 1922–1923.Meetings of the Second Commission on the Regime of Foreigners, Cmd. 1814 Turkey, No.1, 2 FRUS (1923), 879-1040.

  17. 17.

    Montevideo Convention on the Rights & Duties of States, 26 December 1933.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Euro University of Bahrain, Manama, Bahrain

    Michael Mulligan

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  1. Michael Mulligan

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Correspondence toMichael Mulligan.

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Lincoln, UK

    Marianna Charountaki

  2. Leicester, UK

    James R. Moore

  3. Dayton, OH, USA

    Liam Anderson

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Mulligan, M. (2025). International Law and the British Mandate: The Debate About Self-determination in the Middle East After 1919’. In: Charountaki, M., R. Moore, J., Anderson, L. (eds) A Century of State-Making in Iraq. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-76029-7_3

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