Since the withdrawal of US occupying forces, international attention has shifted away from Iraq - but life for Iraqis has become no easier. Deadly bombings are still all too common, sectarian violence has soared and all-pervading corruption means that massive inflows of aid and oil income have made very little difference to crucial issues like security, healthcare and power availability. Now, Iraqi lawyer Zaid al-Ali sets out why and how the post-occupation Iraqi government has failed to achieve legitimacy or improve its citizens' lives. He argues that the ill-planned US intervention destroyed the Iraqi state, creating a black hole which corrupt and incompetent members of the elite have now made their own. In particular, al-Ali demonstrates how Iraqi politicians and the political system have failed to address Iraq's problems. The system of government put in place after 2003 has made Sunni/Shia/Kurd divisions worse rather than better, and created a dysfunctional state where the legal system is in crisis, human-rights abuses are commonplace and the natural environment, already degraded by Saddam Hussein's destructive projects, is worsening every day. This is a vivid, informed and ultimately very sad book.

Zaid Al-Ali is Senior Adviser on Constitution Building at International IDEA.  He has been practicing law since 1999, specializing in international commercial arbitration and comparative constitutional law.  He has law degrees from Harvard Law School, the Université de Paris I (Sorbonne) and King’s College London.  From 2005 to 2010, he was a legal adviser to the United Nations focusing on constitutional, parliamentary and judicial reform in Iraq.  Since the beginning of 2011, he has been working on constitutional reform throughout the Arab region, in particular in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt.  He has published widely on Iraq and on constitutional law.  His book on the post-2003 transition in Iraq will be published by Yale University Press in early 2014 (http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=9780300187267).   

This event is free and open to the public, but seating may be limited.