The various chapters of this study are grouped into three separate parts. In Part One the focus is on the contextual background related to Iraqi oil and gas. Part Two deals with the complications associated with the various Iraqi legislative measures that are designed to shape the future of that nation's oil and gas regime. Part Three, on the other hand, examines some of the principal current legal issues that bedevil lawyers and policymakers working hard to stabilize and move the hydrocarbons sector of the economy forward at a rapid pace.

Part One's attention to the contextual background concentrates on a variety of subjects and is reflected in two distinct chapters. The operative premise is that a complete and nuanced understanding of the developing Iraqi oil and gas law depends upon an appreciation of at least the bare essentials concerning both the factual setting regarding Iraqi oil and gas and the legal situation that antedated the growth of Iraqi self-governance following Gulf War II. Even beyond these two matters, however, any such understanding would also seem to depend upon a basic familiarity with the fundamental terms of the Iraqi Constitution that impact oil and gas activity and the revenues associated therewith, as well as some of the important disputes and controversies generated by the language of the Iraqi Constitution.