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What Egypt should learn from Iraq

Zaid Al-Ali, 21 April 2011, OpenDemocracy

After the extraordinary initial success of Egypt’s popular revolution in removing Hosni Mubarak from power, the supreme council for the armed forces published an interim constitution on 30 March 2011 that is to guide the country through the coming period. Although the text opens up exciting new possibilities and opportunities for change, it is also deeply problematic, particularly insofar as the mechanism for drafting the permanent constitution is concerned. In that regard, Egypt has much to learn from Iraq, which is the only country in the Arab region to have engaged in a constitutional drafting process in recent memory.

Meet the Author

Zaid Al-Ali has been practicing law since 1999, specializing in international commercial arbitration and comparative constitutional law.

Author Zaid Al-Ali and his wife Rouba Beydoun during a dust storm in Iraq in 2010.

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.

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