The Effect of Occupation on Private Property and Contract Rights

Abstract

Abstract This chapter examines the effect of occupation on private property and contract rights within the context of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. In doing so, I examine how the treatment of private property in the Iraqi occupation compares and contrasts with Japanese, Italian, and German occupations after World War II. Furthermore, I show how non-European occupations have been characterized by a disregard of occupation rules safeguarding private property as opposed to European occupations. This disregard of the private property under occupation is similar to the disregard with reference to territorial acquisitions of a much earlier period, which I addressed in Chapter 2. In this chapter, I also demonstrate the importance placed on the private property of Europeans in non-European contexts and the lack of focus on the private property rights of non-Europeans. It is therefore not surprising that, following the U.S.-led conquest of Iraq in early 2003, most scholarly and press coverage focused on the status of foreign corporations’ property in Iraq before the war.