INTRODUCTION

As indicated in Chapter 8, under some circumstances one may be compelled to determine whether the central government in Baghdad is empowered to enter into oil and gas development agreements in the absence of a national framework law on oil and gas. Similarly, it is possible to envision having to confront the question of whether and, if so, how revenues from oil and gas activities of the central government or its subcentral components are to be distributed in the absence of a federal revenue-sharing law of the sort examined in Chapter 5. The answer to this query is informed by various layers of analysis, with the first being, as with the matter of the central government's legal authority to enter development agreements, what the terms of the Iraqi Constitution provide directly or indirectly on revenue distribution. Several provisions of the Constitution speak to the matter in one way or another, many in a roundabout and oblique fashion. However, articles 111 and 112, examined earlier in several different contexts, and article 121 much more squarely address the issue of sharing oil and gas revenues.

Beyond the Constitution, reference might also be made to what the terms of extant subcentral governmental unit law provide. After all, inherent in the nature of the central or federal government unit would be the inclination to provide for the distribution of available revenues throughout the entire country.