Title: The Legal Status of the Kurdistan Region of Northern Iraq under International Law and Its Implications for the Concept of International Legal Personality.
Author: Sherin Seyda
Place of publication: Amsterdam
Publisher: Amsterdam Graduate Law School
Release date: 2015

While de jure not fully independent, the Kurdistan Region can be said to deal with the Iraqi central government and to some extent even with external powers as equals. This de facto autonomy has influenced the development of the Kurdistan Region immensely and has had an impact on its state-building and policies as well as its interaction with the international community. However, in order to take action within legal situations, international legal personality is considered a condition sine qua non, implying that without such legal personality an entity would not exist in law and therefore cannot operate in a way recognized by the international legal system nor can it hold responsibility under international law. The question of the legal status of the Kurdistan Region is therefore inherently connected to the investigation of its international personality. In other words: does the entity of the Kurdistan Region possess international legal personality, and if so, to what degree?. [1]