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The United States and the Coalition Provisional Authority – occupation by proxy?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 May 2019

Amy Elizabeth Chinnappa
Amy Elizabeth Chinnappa*
Affiliation:
La Trobe University, Bundoora, Victoria, Australia
*
Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

The Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) governed Iraq from 2003 following Resolution 1483 of the UN Security Council. This Resolution affirmed that Iraq was in a state of occupation and that there were occupying powers. The Resolution referred to the United States of America and the United Kingdom as ‘occupying powers under the unified command of the “Authority”’, the ‘Authority’ being the CPA. However, the legal status of the CPA and its relationship to the US (the focus of this article) is not entirely clear, both under US domestic law and international law. This lack of clarity could have significant implications for the US’s responsibility for the CPA’s conduct. As with private military companies, a CPA-style administration of territory could become a tool for states to quarantine their risk under the law of occupation. This article contends that the theory of occupation by proxy may help clarify the legal status of the CPA and its relationship to the US and could assist in closing the identified gap in responsibility. To support this argument, this article establishes a legal framework for the theory of occupation by proxy which is then applied to the CPA and US.

Keywords

Coalition Provisional AuthorityIraqoccupationproxyresponsibility
Type
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Information
Leiden Journal of International Law , Volume 32 , Issue 3 , September 2019 , pp. 415 - 436
Copyright
© Foundation of the Leiden Journal of International Law 2019 

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References

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3 Ibid.

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5 UN Doc. S/RES/1483 (2003).

6 Ibid., at preamble.

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24 Ibid.

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51 Ibid.

52 Ibid., at 149.

53 Ibid.

54 Ibid.

55 Nicaragua case, supra note 22.

56 Ibid., at 64, para. 115.

57 Ibid.

58 Ibid.

59 Ibid.

60 Ibid.

61 Ibid.

62 Bosnian Genocide case, supra note 25, at 208, para. 400.

63 CPA, Order Number 2 ‘Dissoulution of Entities’, Doc. CPA/ORD/23May2003/02.

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73 Ibid.

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75 Ibid.

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77 Ibid., at 212.

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105 Ibid.

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118 Whether this would legally meet the requirements of Art. 42 of the Hague Regulations and therefore, is a requirement for establishing effective control, is beyond the scope of this article. See in this regard Benvenisti, supra note 88, at 53.

119 Dinstein, supra note 102, at 44.

120 Ibid., at 35.

121 Benvenisti, supra note 88, at 47.

122 Ibid., at 50 (emphasis in original).

123 Armed Activites on the Territory of the Congo (Democratic Republic of the Congo v. Uganda), Judgment of 19 December 2005, [2005] ICJ Rep. 168, at 196, para. 43.

124 Ibid.

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128 Gal, supra note 15, at 74.

129 Ibid., at 73.

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136 Ibid., at 75, para. 222.

137 Ibid., at para. 221.

138 Ibid., at para. 30.

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141 Ibid.

142 Ibid.

143 Ibid.

144 Ibid.

145 Zwanenburg et al., supra note 131, at 34.

146 ILC Articles, supra note 18, at 47.

147 Ibid.

148 Ibid.

149 Prosecutor v. Tadić, Judgement, Case No. IT-94-1-T, 7 May 1997, at para. 205.

150 Ibid., at para. 584.

151 Tadić case, supra note 92, at 51, para. 124.

152 Ibid., at 51, para. 124 (emphasis in original).

153 Ibid., at 56, para. 132.

154 Ibid., at 56, para. 131.

155 Ibid., at 72, para. 162.

156 Blaškić case, supra note 101.

157 Ibid., at 51, para. 149.

158 Naletilić and Martinović case, supra note 114, at 72, para. 214.

159 Ferraro, supra note 86, at 58; Gilder, supra note 86, at 64.

160 Armed Activites case, supra note 123, at 168.

161 Bosnian Genocide case, supra note 25, at 43.

162 Armed Activites case, supra note 123, at 226, para. 160.

163 Ibid., at 226, para. 160.

164 Ibid., at 230–1, para. 177.

165 Ibid.

166 Bosnian Genocide case, supra note 25, at 209, para. 403.

167 Ibid.

168 Ibid., at 210, para. 404.

169 Ibid., at 210, para. 406.

170 Ibid., at 209, para. 402.

171 Benvenisti, supra note 88, at 62.

172 Ibid., at 62.

173 Ibid.

174 Pictet, supra note 74, at 212.

175 In 2003, the International Committee of the Red Cross instigated a review of the law of occupation and other forms of territorial administration by an expert panel, see Ferraro, supra note 14. The report posits the theory of indirect effective control.

176 Ibid., at 160.

177 Ibid., at 160; Gal, supra note 15, at 64.

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181 Tadić case, supra note 92, at 49, para. 120.

182 Dobbins, supra note 16, at 264.

183 Ferraro, supra note 86, at 143.

184 Ibid.

185 CPA, Regulation Number 1 (2003).

186 CPA, Order Number 7 Penal Code (2003), Doc. CPA/ORD/9June2003/07.

187 Geneva Convention (IV), supra note 132, Art. 64.

188 CPA, Order Number 1 De-Ba Athification of Iraqi Society (2003), Doc. CPA/ORD/16May2003/01.

189 Geneva Convention (IV) supra note 132, Art. 51.

190 Dobbins, supra note 31, at 131.

191 Tadić case, supra note 92, at 69, para. 156.

192 Ibid.

193 Ibid.

194 Dobbins, supra note 31, at 131–2.

195 Halchin, supra note 34, at 19.

196 Dobbins, supra note 31, at 135.

197 Bremer, supra note 67, at 39.

198 Dobbins, supra note 16, at 117.

199 Dobbins, supra note 31, at 131.

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203 Gal, supra note 15, at 77.

204 Ibid., at 64.

205 For a discussion on private military companies and the law of state responsibility see V. Ballesteros Moya, ‘The Privatization of the Use of Force Meets the Law of State Responsibility’, (2015) 30 AmUIntlLRev 795.

206 Gal, supra note 15, at 79.

207 Klabbers and Trommer, supra note 71, at 75.

208 Oswald, supra note 70, at 317–18.

209 Tadić case, supra note 92, at 50, para. 122.

210 Bosnian Genocide case, supra note 25, at 210, para. 406.